OPINION:
Rep. Cori Bush began sleeping on the steps of the Capitol Friday night to protest the expiration of a moratorium on evictions, which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi allowed to expire.
“Good morning. The eviction moratorium expires at midnight,” Ms. Bush, a Missouri Democrat, tweeted on Saturday before the moratorium was lifted. “We could have extended it yesterday, but some Democrats went on vacation instead.”
In response, Ms. Pelosi, who adjourned the House on Friday, argued she did not have the votes and exhorted the White House to “immediately extend the moratorium.” She called it a “moral imperative.” It was a disingenuous maneuver by the Speaker since she knew full well that the Biden administration does not have the legal authority for such an action.
The Biden administration, in turn, blamed state and local authorities for not dispensing aid quickly enough and, of course, the Trump administration for not properly setting up the program in the first place. The administration insisted that they had “quadruple-checked” whether they could legally extend the moratorium, but their hands were tied.
“I don’t buy that the CDC can’t extend the eviction moratorium – something that has been done in the past!” Rep. Maxine Waters angrily tweeted at the White House in response.
“Who is going to stop them? Who is going to penalize them? There is no official ruling saying they cannot extend this moratorium. C’mon CDC – have a heart! Just do it!”
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also criticized the Biden administration for waiting until just days before the moratorium’s expiration to press for Congressional action.
Senate Democrats, meanwhile, are in session. They are focused on passing a bipartisan infrastructure deal — much to the chagrin of the “progressive” members of the Squad. AOC and other “progressives” are threatening to blow the entire thing up if a $3.5 trillion leftwing wish list isn’t attached to the infrastructure bill through budgetary gimmickry known as “reconciliation.”
Once again, the problem for the Squad is their fellow Democrats. Moderate Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have both balked at the massive price tag of the leftwing wishlist.
“Good luck tanking your own party’s investment on childcare, climate action, and infrastructure while presuming you’ll survive a 3 vote House margin — especially after choosing to exclude members of color from negotiations and calling that a ‘bipartisan accomplishment,’” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez tweeted at Ms. Sinema, for her reluctance to support the $3.5 trillion measure and only negotiating with White Senators on the bipartisan deal.
If the slimmed-down bipartisan deal passes the Senate, the House will have to approve the measure for it to go into law. If that happens, Speaker Pelosi can only afford to lose three Democrat votes. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said this weekend she has “more than enough” votes within the “progressive” caucus to tank the bill if reconciliation doesn’t happen.
“If there is not a reconciliation bill in the House, and if the Senate does not pass the reconciliation bill, we will uphold our end of the bargain and not pass the bipartisan bill until we get all of these investments in,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez promised.
Democrats control the House, the Senate, and the White House. Yet, they’re sleeping on the steps of the Capitol, protesting their own party on eviction moratoriums, pressuring the Biden administration to knowingly break the law, are publicly calling each other racist, and seem to be on track to tank their own infrastructure bill.
If Democrats are unhappy, they have only themselves to blame.
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