By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Democrat Hakeem Jeffries could be poised to wield more power than a minority leader typically enjoys in the U.S. House of Representatives, with President-elect Donald Trump’s fractious Republicans holding a thin majority.
Republican Speaker Mike Johnson turned to him more than a dozen times during the 2023-2024 session to provide Democratic votes to pass critical legislation, including in May when Jeffries helped Johnson hold off an effort by hardline Republicans to end his speakership.
During Friday’s vote to re-elect Johnson, all 215 Democrats voted for their 54-year-old leader from New York — as they have done repeatedly through speaker fights over the past two years. Johnson was re-elected speaker, but only after the vote had to be held open for a prolonged period amid attempts by Trump and Johnson to cajole two of the three Republicans who voted against him to switch their positions and propel him to victory.
Republicans will initially hold a 219-215 majority.
“I think we have a lot more leverage there than we had” in 2017, said Democratic Representative Don Beyer in an interview last month. That year marked the start of Trump’s first term in office, when his Republicans also controlled the House, but by a 40-seat margin.
To be sure, Jeffries’ powers, and those of Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, will be limited. Republicans will try to pass much of Trump’s legislative agenda on party-line votes, bypassing Senate rules that require 60 of the 100 members to agree on most legislation, as Democrats did during President Joe Biden’s first two years in office.
In the House, Jeffries’ powers mainly will be limited to exploiting divisions among Republicans that necessitate Democratic votes to pass legislation.
It is a tactic Jeffries deployed more than a dozen times since Republicans took control of the House in January 2023 on bills ranging from government funding to an $895 billion bill authorizing military programs and emergency aid for Ukraine’s war effort against Russia.
The upcoming battle over Trump’s push to renew expiring tax cuts, which were enacted in 2017 and aimed mainly at corporations and the wealthy, gives Democrats hope that Jeffries can win concessions. These include an expanded child tax credit for low-income people and repeal of a cap on deductions for state and local taxes.
Mindful of voters’ backlash against high consumer prices under Biden’s watch, Jeffries used a speech during the first meeting of the newly-elected House to proclaim: “For far too long in this country the cost of living has gone up but the size of the middle class has come down.” Citing high costs of housing, groceries and childcare, Jeffries added, “America is too expensive.”
While he said Democrats stand ready to work in a bipartisan way with Republicans, he warned: “We will push back against far-right extremism whenever necessary.” He singled out a need to defend Social Security retirement and Medicare healthcare benefits from cuts.
He and his lieutenants have sketched out additional areas of possible bipartisan compromise, which include protecting people brought to the United States illegally when they were children from deportation, revamping U.S. asylum law and updating the visa system for immigrant farm workers.
‘CAN’T BE STEAMROLLED’
What remains to be seen is whether Jeffries will manage to forge a working relationship with Trump. The two New York City natives collaborated during Trump’s 2017-2021 term on criminal justice reforms. But since then, Washington partisanship has only deepened and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, had a contentious relationship with Trump.
Last month, when Trump tried to force passage of a controversial debt limit increase as part of a retooled stopgap funding bill, Democrats balked and were joined by about three dozen disgruntled Republicans.
“We showed that we can’t be steamrolled,” veteran Democratic Representative Debbie Dingell said.
The chaos raised questions over whether Trump had needlessly expended post-election capital before his presidency had even begun and now might have to lower his sights.
“I don’t think so. He’s still strong. People still love him back home. That’s all that really matters,” Republican Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee told reporters.
