Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on Thursday that President Biden did not undercut vulnerable House Democrats by urging them to oppose some GOP bills only to turn around and agree to sign the efforts once in the Senate.
Mr. Jeffries, New York Democrat, said the president tells the truth when it comes to vetoing legislation.
“To the extent that the White House has indicated that they are going to veto legislation, the White House has kept its word,” said Mr. Jeffries. “As far as I’m concerned, that is the most important marker of communication.”
The comments came one day after Mr. Biden told Senate Democrats he would sign a GOP bill to end the COVID-19 national emergency. The announcement came even though the administration had urged House Democrats to oppose the same bill when it came up for a vote in February.
The reversal is the second one in as many months by Mr. Biden. In February, the administration urged House Democrats to oppose a Republican-led effort to overturn an overhaul of the District of Columbia’s criminal code.
With Mr. Biden’s opposition, 173 House Democrats voted against the overturn, while 31 bucked their party to side with Republicans. The president then signed the overturn.
Several of the House Democrats that voted against are facing tough reelection challenges in 2024. Some, like Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, are already facing negative ads because of the vote.
“You can’t push us to oppose something, then turn around and say it’s OK for [Senate Democrats like] Joe Manchin to vote for it,” said one House Democrat. “It’s not fair.”
Administration allies say Mr. Biden did not flip-flop. They note that the White House never officially said it would veto the crime overhaul or the coronavirus measure and that Mr. Biden never ruled out signing them either.
Mr. Jeffries backed up the argument, saying the White House had different gears in its legislation strategy.
“I think with respect to statements of administrative policy, there are different levels of expressions of opposition — in terms of whether they disagree, strongly disagree in some cases [or] affirmatively indicate that they are going to veto the legislation.”
Some House Democrats don’t buy the excuse. They say that if Mr. Biden won’t veto a piece of legislation, they should get the same heads-up that Senate Democrats do before voting.
“If he was going to do it I wish he would’ve told us first because this was a hard vote for the House members,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, said this month.
• Haris Alic can be reached at halic@washingtontimes.com.
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