Hakeem Jeffries fumes at two House Dem defectors, vows serious response

WASHINGTON — House Democratic leadership publicly scolded Reps.Jared Golden and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez for breaking party lines to bail out Republicans on a key vote Tuesday.

The two blue dog Democrats voted for a GOP rule, a procedural requirement needed to determine how bills will be considered, after Republicans suffered enough defections to defeat the measure.It passed 210-208.

Bipartisan votes for rules almost never happen in the House of Representatives.If Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) and Golden (D-Maine) didn’t intervene, the House likely would’ve frozen up, and Republicans would’ve been largely unable to ram through their agenda for the week.“The decision by two of our colleagues to blindside the entire House Democratic Caucus and join with the Republican majority to pass a procedural rule on the brink of failing represents a significant breach of trust,” House Democratic leadership said in a joint statement Tuesday.“It necessitates a serious response, and we have asked the Committee on Caucus Rules to take this up in short order.”As a result of their defection, Democrats were forced to take a difficult vote on a resolution denouncing socialism, something 192 of them opposed.House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is in line to become House Speaker should Democrats retake the House after November’s midterm elections.

Ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was famous for keeping her caucus in line, and Tuesday’s episode demonstrated that Jeffries will have work ahead to command the Democratic Party.“Voting for the rule is something that I, as Speaker, never— We didn’t even consider that anybody would do that,” Pelosi told Politico in response to the two defections.

“We never had that problem, so I’m disappointed that they did that.”Some Democrats have floated different ideas for punishing Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden, such as yanking them from their committee assignments for the remainder of the year.Golden isn�...