Report: Pelosi handed major defeat by her own party

By Bob Unruh

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., at a news conference Jan. 17, 2019 (video screenshot)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has ruled her Democrat party colleagues with an iron fist during her tenure at the top of the House.

Until now.

In a development that Fox News characterized as a “major defeat” she has succumbed to the demands of the “progressives” within her own party.

The situation was the decision by Democrats to put off work on an infrastructure plan that already has been approved in the Senate.

The issue is that Pelosi’s party extremists insisted that they get a vote on $3.5 trillion spending on social and green programs – most of President Biden’s actual agenda – first.

Moderates in the party wouldn’t agree, which left Pelosi in the untenable position of being unable to meet the demands of both Democrat factions.

The result?

The $1 trillion infrastructure plan vote was delayed over and over. Nor is the $3.5 trillion wish list anywhere near adoption, as several Democrats in the 50-50 Senate have significant concerns.

“It was a stunning failure for the speaker who’s been known for years for her iron grip on her caucus and her ability to win major votes by the slimmest of margins,” Fox News explained.

“It caused President Biden’s two biggest agenda items to come to a screeching halt in Congress. And it represented a breakthrough win for Progressive Caucus Chairman Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who held her members together against the bipartisan infrastructure bill while Pelosi and other Democratic leaders were whipping for it.”

Jayapal said she was proud of her success in preventing the infrastructure bill from moving forward.

Fox News reported Pelosi was “left to spin her defeat.”

She immediately promised a “vote” on the bill, but it didn’t happen. Her comment was that work was continuing.

Pelosi at one point became famous for spending $101,000 of taxpayer money for in-flight food and alcohol during her 2008-2009 travels. She even had demanded, at one point, taxpayers provide chocolate-covered strawberries, “dark chocolate preferred,” because it was her birthday.

She explained the “dynamics” of the Biden bills.

That is that two factions of her party were in disagreement.

Fox News reported, “The speaker was dealt an extremely difficult hand. She had to move two massive bills on a condensed timeline with an almost nonexistent margin for error in a divided caucus. But the fact remains she did not get the job done.”

James Wallner, an R Street Institute fellow, said the bills still may come about.

“What Pelosi did was pull a bill or not have a vote on the bill because she’s going to lose. So she’s preserving the option to win in the future,” Wallner said. “It does, I think, signify that the progressives recognize their leverage and they recognize that if they don’t use their leverage, if they don’t actually maintain their credibility, that they’re gonna get rolled.”

Fox News had noted at one point that Pelosi was admitting defeat on the infrastructure bill, because “more time is needed.”

She still faces total opposition from Republicans on the $3.5 trillion spending spree, and in the Senate, that plan faces entrenched opposition from at least two Democrat senators whose votes are required for it to pass.

Newsweek said that the progressives in her party were “pleased after beating Nancy Pelosi in a game of chicken.”

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Bob Unruh

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially. Read more of Bob Unruh's articles here.


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