Elizabeth Warren is revolting. No, not
that way. She's leading a rebellion against moderate Senate
Democrats. A partial rollback of Dodd-Frank regulations has enough
bipartisan support to give it a real chance of passage and Sen.
Warren (D-Mass.) doesn't like it.
Warren sent out a fundraising email
attacking the Democrats who supported the banking reform bill. The
email led in turn to a contentious meeting of Senate Democrats.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, (D-N.Y.), who doesn't officially
support the bill, has not been vocal in his opposition. Schumer
reportedly urged Warren to temper her criticism by focusing on facets
of the legislation that she opposes rather than engaging in
intraparty warfare.
“This is what I said I was going to
do,” Warren reportedly told Schumer per Politico
sources. “This is why I ran for the Senate.”
The bill, officially titled the
“Economic
Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act,” but
dubbed the “Bank Lobbyist Act” by Warren, has done what
Republicans have been unable to to accomplish in other areas: split
the Democrat caucus. The bill, which is favored
by housing industry groups, counts 12 moderate Democrats among
its cosponsors, more than enough to ensure cloture and passage.
The schism between leftist and moderate
Democrats could easily lead to an intraparty rivalry similar to what
Republicans experienced during the later Obama years. Moderate
Democrats may find themselves pitted against the party's left wing
and derided as “Democrats in name only” who are not liberal
enough. It's easy to imagine Warren, the leftist stalwart, in the
role of Ted Cruz, vying for the reins of the party and trying to
steer it toward the left and away from compromise.
The problem for Democrats is that a
strategy of going left is likely to have disastrous electoral
consequences. Doug Jones in Alabama and Conor
Lamb in Pennsylvania have demonstrated that moderate Democrats
can be competitive in deep red Trump country, especially if
Republicans continue to nominate flawed candidates, but the Warren
strategy of forcing these moderates to the hard left after they are
elected would invariably lead to a Republican wave similar to 2010
and 2014.
Schumer seems to realize this. His
decision to allow moderates to work on the bipartisan bill to reform
Dodd-Frank may have been made with the upcoming elections in mind.
The success of the bill would allow moderates to crow about a
positive accomplishment rather than being forced to run on opposition
to President Trump.
DNC Chair Tom Perez hinted at a similar
strategy in a recent segment on CNN.
When asked about a Conor Lamb ad in which the candidate distanced
himself from Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Perez replied, “Listen,
Democrats are going to do what they believe is best to win their
races.”
Dana Bash then asked, “So you don't
think that Nancy Pelosi is a drag on Democrats in tough races?”
Perez deflected the question, but the
answer is obvious. “San Fran Nan,” who isn't even popular with
liberals these days, would be the kiss of death for moderate
Democrats in red or purple states.
Democrats hope for a “blue wave”
this November, but to make that a reality they will have to nominate
candidates that are a good
fit for the local electorate. Candidates for swing states will
need to be more moderate than the Democratic Party at large and may
not fit with the liberal orthodoxy on issues like guns, taxes and
especially cultural matters such as gender and abortion. This is a
recipe for conflict down the road.
The paradox of winning a majority is
that Democrats will find that a larger congressional caucus means
that the party is more moderate. While the Elizabeth Warrens of the
left may not like this move to the center, to force representatives
of swing districts into hard left voting patterns would mean that any
majority would be short-lived.
Originally published on The
Resurgent
