Pelosi, Schumer say 'Trump shutdown' can be avoided
Democrat leaders address reporters after their meeting with President Trump on funding a border wall.
Democrats have reclaimed their majority in the House of Representatives, having gained 40 seats in the November midterm elections. That gain brings the House Democrats’ total number of seats to 235. Republicans will have 199. So, what should House Democrats do with that majority come January?
First, I will tell you what they SHOULDN’T do.
1. Impeach President Donald Trump
Although 77 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of all voters want President Trump to be impeached, the Democrats should steer clear of this. Instead, they should focus on how to beat him in the 2020 election. If impeached, the president would not be removed from office because Democrats do not have the two-thirds majority needed to remove him. It would be a political disaster as Republicans learned in 1998 when they impeached President Bill Clinton. After Clinton’s impeachment, the GOP lost five House seats and rather than Bill Clinton resigning, it was House Speaker Newt Gingrich who did.
2. Investigate Ivanka’s emails
It would be beyond hypocritical for Democrats to waste taxpayer time and money slapping Ivanka Trump on the wrist for using her personal email account while in the White House. Investigation after investigation, committee after committee, found that Hillary Clinton was foolish to use her private email account while Secretary of State, but a criminal case was never pursued. The same conclusion would bear out with Ivanka and the Democrats shouldn’t touch this.
3. Abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Talking about abolishing ICE may have gotten some far-left self-proclaimed socialists elected in November, but this idea doesn’t have mass appeal. The voters want and the nation needs comprehensive immigration reform – not an abolishment of one of its federal agencies.
So, now that you know what the Democrats shouldn’t do, what issues SHOULD they tackle?
1. Reform Health Care
First and foremost, Democrats must reform health care. Exit polls show that was the top priority for most voters on both sides of the political aisle. The new majority knows it must stop any further efforts by Republicans and the Trump administration to roll back and undermine the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Voters want their pre-existing conditions covered and the ACA does that.
But Democrats also must attempt to fix the ACA’s problems by offering a bill to stabilize the ObamaCare insurance markets. And they must prevent any attempt to overhaul Medicaid and Medicare.
Furthermore, if Democrats tackle drug pricing, it would offer them an opportunity to work on a bipartisan level with Senate Republicans and the Trump administration. That could score them points going forward to 2020, since voters are tired of the gridlock and a do-nothing Congress.
2. Tackle Immigration Reform
The voters want, and the United States needs, comprehensive immigration reform. Voters seemed to reject the president’s threat to deport 800,000 young immigrants, the separation of children from their parents, and Trump’s border wall. But what exit polls also showed is that about half of the voters actually like the president’s tough stance on immigration. That is where Democrats again could reach across the aisle and work in a bipartisan manner.
Democrats and Republicans agree that we need to secure our southern border. That can be done by putting more money into the hiring of border patrol agents and using more state of the art protection devices (such as a cyber wall, which can detect attempts at tunneling underground which a wall cannot address).
Democrats should also permanently protect the DREAMers – the young immigrants who were brought to this country illegally through no fault of their own. And they should provide a pathway to citizenship for the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants who are in this nation and a part of our economy.
3. Work on Gun Control
Democrats in the House have already pledged to use their new majority to pass gun control legislation. They must offer a bill that would expand background checks on gun purchases. Even if this gets blocked in the Senate, passing any type of gun control legislation in the lower chamber would be a win for the Democrats and reflect poorly on the GOP. According to the polls, an overwhelming majority of Americans support expanded background checks on gun sales. They also favor laws to prevent people with mental illness from being able to purchase guns.
4. Pass the Equal Rights Amendment
After the midterm elections last month, exit polls showed that the treatment of women was an issue to voters. Democrats would win points among women by finally passing an equal rights amendment. The Constitution’s insertion of “male” in the second section of the 14th amendment (“…the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State”) is archaic.
Every constitution worldwide since 1950 has guaranteed that men and women are treated as equal citizens. As Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated: “Just like freedom of speech [and] freedom of the press, a fundamental tenet of our society should be the equal citizenship stature of men and women, and that’s what the Equal Rights Amendment would do.”
Democrats need to listen to the voices of the voters and get to work putting forth legislation that will address their needs.
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