LEESBURG, Va. — Ahead of the fall midterms, House Democrats say they’re united around affordability messaging across their wide political spectrum. But they’re still trying to agree on what pieces of that should take priority in their flagship bill for the coming Congress if they take the majority.
The caucus is meeting in Virginia this week for its annual policy retreat to figure out which proposals under the large umbrella of “affordability” — health care, housing, energy, tariffs and taxes — should be the first to take legislative form.
“You deserve lower costs, and that’s housing, that’s child care, that’s groceries, it’s utility bills,” said Democratic Whip Katherine M. Clark, D-Mass. “You deserve a health care system that works for you … and you deserve a government that works for you, that’s being anti-corruption, that is building in efficiencies and building a fair tax code.”
If Democrats take the majority of the House, that bill would become the rallying cry — one the caucus would agree makes good on its members’ campaign promises from purple to deep-blue districts. It would be labeled HR 1, the bill number typically assigned to the ruling party’s top goal on its to-do list.
A few of Democrats’ various coalitions began to roll out their affordability preferences at a series of press conferences Thursday.
“We can’t be just anti-Trump. We have to have an agenda,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, at the retreat, which came in the wake of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address. “Part of this conference is talk. … Every single voice in the caucus has opinions and needs to be listened to.”
“Let us be blunt — instead of delivering the relief he promised, what we see is total chaos,” Clark said of Trump. “We don’t see solutions.”
While Democrats hone in on affordability, Republicans are focusing on voting laws — particularly what they’ve dubbed the SAVE America Act, which would require voters to prove citizenship at registration and a photo ID at the polls.
Although Democrats made voting rights their HR 1 topic the last time they held the House majority in the 117th Congress, aside from opposing the SAVE America bill, they’ve largely decentered the issue this time around.
“We believe in a secure and fair voting system in the U.S.,” said Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Texas, when asked about the GOP voter ID bill at a news conference held by the New Democrat Coalition. “But we don’t want Republicans to try to game the system by looking for ways to exclude people.”
Then, the focus quickly shifted back to affordability: “We are fighting to lower costs for American people, and that’s going to be the No. 1 issue in this election,” said Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz.
Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, D-Fla., a co-chair of the DPCC, said the broad strokes of the agenda will focus on overhauling the health care system, rooting out corruption in Washington and bringing down costs.
“Those are the three issues we’re really figuring out, ‘What are the policies that we want to tell our constituents that we’ll pass in the majority?’” he said. “It was inspired through conversations with everybody, from the Blue Dogs, the Progressive Caucus, the New Dems and everybody in between.”
The New Democrat Coalition, a group of centrist Democrats whose members include lawmakers representing swing districts, has already released an “affordability agenda” touching on grocery prices, health care, housing, energy and family care.
When asked about a single proposal the coalition would prop up ahead of the midterms, NDC Chair Brad Schneider, D-Ill., said: “I think that’s the work that we’re still to do.”
A big piece of Democrats’ HR 1 bill will likely be aimed at curbing health care costs — especially as Democrats continue to advocate to extend the COVID-19-era enhanced premium tax credits that many on the Affordable Care Act used to subsidize their health insurance.
Frost said the DPCC is putting together a “comprehensive housing package,” but didn’t go into details. Democratic Women’s Caucus Chair Teresa Leger Fernández, D-N.M., said they’re also pushing for proposals to support caregivers and lower costs for child care as part of the agenda.
“It’s not the be-all, end-all list of how we go about it in the months ahead,” said Schneider. “As we lead into the campaign, we’ll talk about more of those details.”
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