WASHINGTON — House Democratic leadership publicly scolded Reps. Jared Golden and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez for breaking party lines to bail out Republicans on a key vote Tuesday.
The two blue dog Democrats voted for a GOP rule, a procedural requirement needed to determine how bills will be considered, after Republicans suffered enough defections to defeat the measure. It passed 210-208.
Bipartisan votes for rules almost never happen in the House of Representatives.
If Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) and Golden (D-Maine) didn’t intervene, the House likely would’ve frozen up, and Republicans would’ve been largely unable to ram through their agenda for the week.
“The decision by two of our colleagues to blindside the entire House Democratic Caucus and join with the Republican majority to pass a procedural rule on the brink of failing represents a significant breach of trust,” House Democratic leadership said in a joint statement Tuesday.
“It necessitates a serious response, and we have asked the Committee on Caucus Rules to take this up in short order.”
As a result of their defection, Democrats were forced to take a difficult vote on a resolution denouncing socialism, something 192 of them opposed.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is in line to become House Speaker should Democrats retake the House after November’s midterm elections.
Ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was famous for keeping her caucus in line, and Tuesday’s episode demonstrated that Jeffries will have work ahead to command the Democratic Party.
“Voting for the rule is something that I, as Speaker, never— We didn’t even consider that anybody would do that,” Pelosi told Politico in response to the two defections. “We never had that problem, so I’m disappointed that they did that.”
Some Democrats have floated different ideas for punishing Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden, such as yanking them from their committee assignments for the remainder of the year.
Golden isn’t seeking another term, but Gluesenkamp Perez is running for reelection in one of the most competitive races in the country.
Both rogue Democrats indicated that their defection was motivated by the Northeast Lobsterman Protection Act, which was in the bundle of bills that the rule unlocked for consideration.
“They want people to always vote yes or no on procedural votes, even if it were like cutting off their own nose to spite their face,” Golden told reporter Natalie Fertig afterward.
The lobster legislation delays the implementation of new fishing regulations aimed at protecting whales until 2035.
Ultimately, that bill passed 219–196 on Tuesday. Golden warned that without it, some 18,000 jobs in Maine were at stake.
“When I first got into Congress, lobstermen were terrified at the scale of these proposed new regulations [to protect whales],” he recounted to Fertig. “It was unworkable to the point where there would be hard discussions in communities about which families get to keep fishing and which had to give it up.”
“I literally had fishermen telling me that they were contemplating suicide.”
Gluesenkamp Perez hinted at having a similar mindset on the matter that ripped into the “DC bubble” for not understanding working people’s needs in waterfront areas.
“Nature is not a terrarium–and you don’t get effective environmentalism without the input of people who make their livelihoods and heritage on the water-whether we’re talking about lobsters or sea lions–working people need a seat at the table,” she wrote after the Democratic feud.
The Post contacted Golden’s and Gluesenkamp Perez’s offices for comment.
Before the surprise procedural vote, the House had passed a measure to avert a government shutdown and keep Uncle Sam’s lights on through Dec. 11.
The House did so under a procedure known as suspension of the rules, which meant that it needed two-thirds support to get it done.
House GOP leadership had headaches over the summer from several Republican reps who repeatedly spiked rules and effectively froze up the lower chamber’s floor.
