Democrats realize they could lose control of Congress in the November midterm elections. Therefore, they are trying to shape a 2022 legislative agenda that will ensure success and reassure voters that they are addressing their economic problems and are able to manage them competently.
President Joe Biden and Democrats of Congress had two big successes last year: the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill and the $1 trillion infrastructure package. Still, months of internal conflicts among Democrats over priorities, which left Biden and his party leaders in a difficult position, were etched in the minds of voters. The Biden administration had two important plans at the target of the conflicts; A 10-year social infrastructure bill and voting rights law worth $2 trillion.
Revitalizing the social infrastructure bill tops the 2022 wish list of Democratic House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. It’s a risky endeavor because Democratic Senator Joe Manchin once undermined the law; however, Biden will give up and accept a smaller package, and Democrats can still claim victory with a more modest version of the bill.
“The public wants to see the government work and expects us to keep things moving forward,” said Democrat Suzan DelBene, chair of the New Democrat Coalition, the centrist group in the House of Representatives. DelBene said voters will evaluate the Democrats’ agenda in terms of its “impact on their communities and families,” and that they will consider this when the public votes in the November midterm elections.
To achieve this, Democrats want to pass the midterm election year with victories in Congress, where they rule with almost no votes to lose, often against the Republican single-front opposition. They also discuss the weight of drafting other popular bills and challenge Republican Congressmen.
Pelosi’s other priorities include hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to soldiers and combatants who have served near toxic fire pits where waste is incinerated in Iraq and Afghanistan, a bill that addresses the semiconductor chip shortage and other competitiveness issues, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There is a bill that deals with the threat of invasion and sanctions.
One of the first issues to focus on will be the $1.5 trillion bill that will fund the government by September. Providing more help to deal with Omicron, the highly contagious variant of the Corona virus, may also be on the agenda. Public institutions are running out of budgets on February 18, and reaching an agreement depends on bipartisan cooperation.
But reintroducing social infrastructure, which initially includes popular programs such as curbing prescription drug prices, sending monthly checks to families with children, and curbing global warming, is seen by many Democrats as a political imperative.
Democrat representative Pramila Jayapal, who leads the Congressional Progress Group, said they would need to move very quickly over the next six weeks to rewrite and pass this bill. Jayapal noted that Biden should issue presidential decrees that ease drug prices and student debt, and that House Democrats should send popularly-supported bills to the Senate. Thus, the obstacles that the Republicans will put up will allow the public to see how the Democrats are fighting on these issues.
Party leaders hope to resume talks on the social infrastructure bill soon and reach or be close to a deal by Biden’s State of the Union speech on March 1. Biden predicts “large pieces” of the original bill will go into effect, including pre-kindergarten grants and over $500 billion in budgets for climate change efforts.
After months of negotiations that pitted the progressive wing of the party against the moderates, the Democrats passed a more restricted social infrastructure bill in the House of Representatives in November, despite opposition from Republicans. However, in the Senate, where the Democrats should not lose even a single vote, Senator Joe Manchin struck a blow to the bill, which he argued was too costly.
Members of Congress have already begun to take positions on reintroducing the bill, underlining how long and difficult a bargain can be.
Manchin is in favor of turning a clean slate and writing a new bill, rather than continuing the negotiations from where they left off. James Clyburn, the number three Democrat leader in the House of Representatives, wants the bill to continue helping for affordable housing. Three Democratic representatives from northeastern states want federal tax breaks to be kept for those living in areas like theirs with high state and local taxes.
But crafting an agenda that produces legislative success, not just plans for failure that will expose Republicans’ intransigence, can be crucial for Democrats in a year when the political winds blow against them. Support for the Biden administration’s performance is at its lowest level in a year, according to the latest survey released by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
With the economy, job creation and the stock market strong, and COVID-19 vaccines widely available, concerns have risen over inflation, the ongoing epidemic, and Russia’s threat to Ukraine. All these factors can lead to low turnout in the by-election year and increase the importance of the votes of the parties’ most ideological loyalists.
History is also not on the side of the Democrats. The party that holds the White House has lost seats in the House of Representatives in 17 of the 19 midterm elections since World War II, with an average of 28 losses per election. Republicans could seize control of the House by gaining five seats in November.
This may encourage the development of a forward legislative agenda. “I’m not going to spend all my time talking about those who don’t have it because we have three more years in Biden’s presidency. His term doesn’t end tomorrow,” Democratic representative Clyburn says.
Manchin wasn’t too keen on extending the child tax cut, lowering expectations, prompting Biden to voice his doubts about the continuation of the aid. But child tax relief is a top priority for many, and Schumer and other members of Congress have pledged to seek to continue that assistance.