House Democrats Push Policy Focus After Mueller Probe Letdown

(Bloomberg) -- House Democrats are moving on to issues like health care and climate change after Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report failed to provide a knock-out blow to President Donald Trump on alleged Russian collusion.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Democrats Tuesday they should focus on the policies that resonated with voters in last year’s midterm, even as congressional oversight of the Trump administration continues, Representative Dan Kildee, a Michigan Democrat, said.

“It’s fair to say we’re going to have a stronger emphasis on the issues that moved us into the majority,” Kildee said after the party’s weekly caucus meeting. “I’ve always felt the emphasis should be on kitchen-table economic issues.”

Democrats, especially those who represent swing districts, are under pressure to deliver on the promises that last year helped them secure their biggest electoral victory in decades. The Democratic-led House has already passed legislation on government transparency and gun background checks, but those measures are unlikely to see a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate.

This week Democrats will also introduce a bill to lower health-care costs and shore up Obamacare, followed by a bill to address climate change on Friday. The House will also vote Wednesday on the Paycheck Fairness Act, which seeks to address pay disparities between men and women.

Obamacare Ruling

Democrats’ push on health care is especially timely since the Department of Justice on Monday shifted its stance and said the government agreed with a Texas judge who ruled in December that the Affordable Care Act is invalid. Representative Cheri Bustos of Illinois, head of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, said that the Trump administration’s Obamacare move provides a clarifying moment for the party.

"We are focused on making sure people have access to quality health care and they are in a totally different place," she said, of Republicans. "We know what we are fighting for, that’s to get access to affordable healthcare and that they are fighting against it."

Democrats will also attempt to go on offense on climate change. The caucus is planning a floor vote this week on legislation backing the Paris climate accords,which Trump withdrew from in 2017.

“We’re going to put something on the floor to let folks clock in on where their values are, where they stand," said Florida Representative Kathy Castor, who chairs a newly created climate change panel.

Climate Legislation

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, believing that the progressive climate proposal known as the Green New Deal will be a political liability for Democrats, introduced his own version of the resolution that would set 10-year goals for fossil fuel reduction and a makeover of the U.S. economy. He will put his version of the bill introduced by Democrats to a Senate vote Tuesday.

Democratic leaders resisted calling the renewed emphasis on their "For the People" agenda a pivot, arguing that they’ve prioritized policy issues and downplayed investigations of Trump and possible impeachment since taking control of the House in January.

“House Democrats are focused on pocket-book, kitchen-table issues,” House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries said Tuesday. Referencing Attorney General William Barr’s summary of Mueller’s report, Jeffries said, “nowhere in the ’For the People’ agenda does it talk about obstruction of justice.”

‘Phony’ Narrative

Republicans said Democrats were just trying to run away from the failure to prove President Trump had engaged in wrongdoing.

"Democrats know they’ve been exposed for misleading the American people with their phony Russian collusion narrative, and now they’re desperately trying to rewrite history. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it," said House Republican Conference spokesman Chris Martin.

George Washington University political science professor Sarah Binder said Pelosi has played her hand well by resisting calls for impeachment and leaving door open to deals with the president, but she will have to respond to a progressive base that is wary of working with Trump.

“She has said we want to do stuff on healthcare, on prescription drugs, on infrastructure so I think she’s played it evenly handed enough,” Binder said. “But she has a Democratic base that is not wild about compromise.”

Some progressives, led by Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, are still pushing forward with an impeachment resolution in the wake of the Barr summary. Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar, another freshman closely allied with Tlaib, said that would allow Congress to examine what Trump has done since inauguration.

Asked about Tlaib’s push, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer stuck by leadership’s position. "We’ve indicated the we don’t think that proceeding on impeachment at this point in time makes sense," he said.

Moderate and conservative Democrats have made it clear they’re ready to move on.

“We should have forgot about the Mueller report,” said House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson, who said the focus should be on completing disaster aid to rural America.

--With assistance from Billy House.

To contact the reporters on this story: Arit John in Washington at ajohn34@bloomberg.net;Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Anna Edgerton

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