Will a Week of Five Alarm Fires Be Enough to Rouse Drowsy House Democrats?
Newsletter 42: It can always get worse, and errors of omission are no less sinful than errors of commission.
The events of the past week should have been a wake-up call for any House Democrat who still thought that the caucus was doing enough to oppose Trump. From Geoffrey Berman’s firing to Trump’s admission and repeated affirmation over the weekend that he sought to slow down coronavirus testing, it is clear that this president is not emerging from the crisis cowed by his failure. Instead, it seems that the past few months have left him emboldened by the knowledge that even criminal incompetence amidst a pandemic was not enough to induce lawmakers to constrain him. With this new sense of invincibility, Trump’s actions over the coming months are likely to be bolder, more unhinged, and more destructive than ever. And that’s not even to mention the wholesale demolition he is likely to undertake should he find himself a lame duck come this November 4.
The likely defeat of 1, and possibly 2, Democratic Party Chairs in New York yesterday amidst a flurry of progressive primary wins suggests that voters are restive and dissatisfied with Pelosi’s approach.
Congressional Oversight
Is all lost? Have we hit the point of no return? Honestly, we don’t know but we’d like to believe (perhaps naively) that there’s still time to halt our slide into authoritarianism. To successfully apply the brakes, House Democrats are going to need to make the President and his cronies suffer some consequences for their actions. Of course, that is easier said than done - especially given the institutional obstacles to accountability. We will not pretend to have The Answer ™ but we do have a relatively straightforward suggestion: try everything.
This is not a new piece of advice; we have been harping on this point since Democrats secured the House majority. Between Trump’s own predictable obstructionism and the backing he was bound to receive from the Senate and an increasingly captured Judiciary, it was always clear that any one tactic to hold the president accountable would have a relatively limited chance of success. But out of twenty, fifty, or a hundred different attempts to get information or induce action, at least some were bound to succeed.
This, of course, has not been the approach. Instead, Democratic leadership insisted on picking only a handful of cases that seemed most likely to succeed and sidelining anything else. That strategy failed on impeachment. We’re still waiting to see if it will bear fruit for Congress’ ability to subpoena the executive branch - a Supreme court opinion is expected in the coming weeks.
(It’s not just us -- the law professor who literally wrote the book on congressional powers has advocated arresting officials ignoring subpoenas as well as conditioning specific government funding on compliance with oversight requests.)
Despite this spotty track record, however, House Democrats still have not shaken their risk aversion. Despite everything that Attorney General William Barr has done including, but certainly not limited to, orchestrating Geoffrey Berman’s firing over the weekend, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler told CNN’s Jake Tapper that while Barr “certainly deserves” to be impeached “that would be a waste of time.”
So I guess that settles it, then. Please, Barr, proceed.
There is, of course, no doubt that impeaching William Barr would be a challenge but that doesn’t mean that Democrats shouldn’t try. Instead, they should take to heart the lessons from the last impeachment probe - not that impeachment cannot succeed (as some seem to believe), but that impeachment on narrow grounds is unlikely to inspire the kind of public pressure that would be needed to force some Republicans to vote to remove.
Moreover, as we’ve long argued, even if impeachment or other oversight efforts don’t succeed, they can still be successful. The inquiry itself would uncover and publicize the full extent of Barr’s culpability, which is certainly not clear to even the most faithful news junkie. Far from merely injecting more facts into any already saturated news environment, the investigations could help to provide an organizing narrative through which to make sense of Barr’s (and this administration’s) misdeeds. And impeaching Barr, even without removing him, would leave a stain on his reputation that might finally curb his undying influence over Republican administrations and legal thought more generally.
Indeed, who wants the first sentence of their obituary to read anything like, “William Barr, who served as Attorney General twice and was Impeached but acquitted on a nearly party line voted, died yesterday”?
Oversight can also have ripple effects that go beyond an investigation’s specific targets. By pursuing Barr, House Democrats could send the message that other administration officials are also vulnerable if they persist in their disregard for the rules and common decency.
Still, impeaching Barr can only be one piece of the strategy. As we’ve been documenting in this Twitter thread over the past three months, this administration’s misdeeds, just with regards to the pandemic response, are virtually endless. The vast majority of these have proceeded unremarked upon and unopposed. (Strongly worded letters, which attract next to zero attention outside of DC policy circles, do not count.) And each time that happens, the administration grows more confident in its ability to do whatever it wants. So it’s time that House Democrats resolve to put up a fight over every new transgression. They’re bound to lose some of them, but maybe sometimes they’ll win. And, at the very least, they’ll have tried to put a stop to this madness.
2020 (and Potentially 2021)
Amid the weekend’s Trump-related chaos, there was a small bright spot. After weeks of waiting, we got some much-needed clarity about the composition of Biden’s nascent transition team and there was much more for progressives to celebrate than to denounce. The team includes Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s Chief of Staff Gautam Raghavan and Julie Siegel, a top adviser in Elizabeth Warren's Senate office and an alumna of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. With these members on the team and Ted Kaufman at the helm, progressives have reason for cautious optimism that their priorities will be on the table.
Kaufman also laid out some of the transition’s “core values” for NBC, including “diversity of ideology and background; talent to address society's most complex challenges; integrity and the highest ethical standards to serve the American people and not special interests; and transparency to enable trust and visibility at every stage." We hope to get more details about how they will put these values into practice in the coming weeks. In particular, what does it mean to hold the next administration’s personnel to “the highest ethical standards to serve the American people and not special interests?” What specific safeguards will they be putting in place? And what sorts of connections will be disqualifying?
Now that the transition team has emerged from the shadows, they’re sure to be inundated with requests for an audience. While in the past corporate America dominated this early influence game, progressives seem to be a sizable force in this latest round. As Kate Aronoff lays out in this piece for the New Republic, they are already staking out a claim over climate-relevant roles. And this time around they’re defining that to go far beyond the traditional “green” jobs at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Interior (DOI), or the Department of Energy (DOE). In fact, at least one person interviewed listed the Secretary of the Treasury and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as his top priorities for the next administration. Addressing climate change will require a whole government approach and it seems the progressive movement is well on its way to making that a reality. If you haven’t already, we really suggest giving the piece a read!
Independent Agencies
To our great surprise, Trump nominated Democrat Caroline Crenshaw to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week. The nomination comes several months after Senator Schumer passed Crenshaw’s name onto Trump and several weeks after the president nominated Republican Hester Peirce, but will nonetheless provide an opportunity for Crenshaw and Peirce’s nominations to proceed as a pair. It’s still to be seen if Senate Republicans actually advance them together.
We’re not sure what induced Trump to make the nomination now, given his persistent refusal to advance Democratic nominations at other agencies. Perhaps McConnell is encouraging some belated adherence to these broken norms in the hopes that Democrats feel more inclined to honor them in the case Trump loses in November? If that’s the case, Senate Democrats should have none of it.
As the project’s Jeff Hauser and Eleanor Eagan (along with Demand Progress’ David Segal) lay out in The American Prospect today, this problem goes well beyond the SEC. Trump and McConnell have persistently undermined partisan balance at independent agencies, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). These norm violations have not only had severe consequences over the past several years, but may continue to have dangerous ramifications for years to come if Republicans retain control of the Senate. Thanks to missing Democratic seats, Senate Republicans can be assured of GOP majorities on certain commissions for years, even if they don’t confirm anyone new to these boards.
In the piece we lay out a few ways that Schumer could exert pressure to fill these seats over the short-term. Most pressing, however, is the need for Senate Democrats to begin taking these positions seriously over the long-run.
Want more?Check out some of the pieces that we have published or contributed research or thoughts to in the last week:
The Quiet Seizure of Independent Agencies
“Career” Trade Reps Solicit USMCA Consulting Gigs from Auto Industry
How Biden Can Prove He's Serious About Busting Corporate Monopolies
Inside the Fight to Shape Biden’s Climate Policy
Democrats absolutely should demand that John Bolton testify
These groups really want Congress to subpoena Big Tech's CEOs