Progressive freshmen struggle to find their footing in an extreme right-wing house

When Rep. Becca Balint saw through an encrypted text chain she uses to communicate with other Democratic women that Republicans were planning to convict a fellow progressive, Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, for participating in a pro-Gaza rally last month at the Capitol, said she was angry.

Then Ms. Balint, a first-term Democrat from Vermont, received notice that the formal reprimand would be filed by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Republican from Georgia — and she saw her opening to strike back.

“I must emphasize that this woman seems singularly focused on coming up with new ways for Americans to hate each other,” Ms. Balint said of Ms. Greene.

Her office resurfaced a censure resolution against the Georgia Republican that Ms. Balint introduced in July but never filed. She quickly passed it through Democratic leaders and got a thumbs-up from Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, and Katherine M. Clark of Massachusetts, the No. 2 Democrat, to move forward.

“Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has repeatedly fanned the flames of racism, anti-Semitism, LGBTQ, hate speech, Islamophobia, anti-Asian hatred, xenophobia and other forms of hatred,” Ms. Balint read in the House of Representatives last week as she introduced the measure submitted. .

At the urging of Democratic leadership, she abruptly abandoned the measure Wednesday evening after Ms. Greene’s attempt to officially punish Ms. Tlaib failed. But Ms. Balint’s determination to pursue this offered a glimpse of how she is trying to break through in a House dominated by the far right.

The Vermont Democrat, along with several fellow freshmen on the Democratic Party’s far-left flank, have formed a kind of progressive clique in the minority, turning to each other for support as they toil to find their place in a room . driven by ultra-conservative Republicans bent on undermining the Biden administration’s policies and blocking progressive priorities.

The effort to censure Ms. Greene came after the Georgia Republican announced from the House of Representatives last week that she had filed a similar measure against Ms. Tlaib “for anti-Semitic activities, sympathizing with terrorist organizations and leading an insurrection in the United States Capitol Complex. .” It sought to formally condemn Ms. Tlaib for joining protesters in calling for a ceasefire in Israel and Gaza at a rally on the Capitol grounds in which she accused Israel of genocide.

On Wednesday night, Ms. Greene’s attempt to punish Ms. Tlaib failed as a bloc of Republicans joined Democrats in killing the country. Some said they didn’t want to waste time on partisan action when there was legislative work to be done.

A little later, Mrs. Balint’s measure – planned as the next assignment – ​​disappeared from the floor plan. But Ms. Balint said she still considered the episode a victory.

“We’ve proven that standing up to bullies works,” she said.

Yet the sudden demise of her censure resolution reflected the difficult task Ms. Balint and her progressive colleagues face in getting their progressive priorities heard. It’s a lonely job that the group — which also includes Reps. Greg Casar of Texas, Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida, Robert Garcia of California, Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, Morgan McGarvey of Kentucky and Delia Ramirez of Illinois — is trying to make more manageable . by staying together. They meet regularly for breakfast or dinner to check in and talk about voting and ways to advance their message.

They have a group chat full of memes and celebrate birthdays with a night of dancing or in a karaoke bar.

The seven, like many liberals on Capitol Hill, have struggled to come to grips with what they came to Washington to accomplish. Of the 45 pieces of legislation the group’s members have jointly introduced since the start of the 118th Congress, none has been passed into law. And only one measure, a measure by Mr. McGarvey to strengthen oversight of veterans’ education benefits, has passed the House of Representatives.

During the summer break, Ms. Balint traveled through Vermont, where many residents were working to recover from the catastrophic flooding that ravaged much of the state in mid-July. As she stopped in communities from Londonderry to Montpelier, the state capital, and met with voters, the difficult political situation in Washington was clearly on her mind.

During a roundtable discussion with flood victims, a business owner shared how she had to wash and hand-dry $5,000 cash from her personal safe to make payroll a week after a devastating flood. Ms Balint wanted to know if her constituent had a photo.

“These are the kinds of images I can take on the House floor and show my colleagues: ‘This is what it looks like,’” Ms. Balint said.

There was no photo of the soaked notes. Nor could she promise concrete steps to implement federal policies that could prevent such disasters — at least in the short term.

“We don’t have the votes right now to take the kind of climate action we want,” Ms. Balint told a group in Montpelier. But she expressed confidence that Democrats could flip the House of Representatives and “have more opportunities.” ”

In an interview, she said it can be difficult to remain optimistic given the political terrain.

“This job is so hard,” Ms. Balint said. “Sometimes you feel like Sisyphus. All you do is push the stone up the hill, and then it rolls back towards you.”

Newcomers to Congress struggle even in the best of times to gain a foothold on Capitol Hill, a place driven by seniority, relationships and legislative skills that most first-year lawmakers lack. But this congressional session has been extraordinary for its chaos and dysfunction, compounded by the influence of right-wing Republicans who have pressured their leaders to adopt as conservative an agenda as possible and wreaked havoc when they didn’t get their way.

Still, Garcia said his constituents, and progressives across the country, were looking to their representatives in Congress to fight.

“There is an expectation from people across the country, especially younger people in diverse communities, that we are there to push the parties as best and as hard as we can,” says Mr. Garcia, the freshman class president.

Sixteen representatives elected in 2022 joined the Congressional Progressive Caucus this year, increasing the group’s membership to 103, the largest in history. But despite their numbers, liberals have failed to make their mark on the legislative agenda, or even push President Biden to embrace some of their most ambitious priorities.

Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat who chairs the Progressive Caucus, said the group’s growth has made it easier for new lawmakers to make inroads despite being in the minority.

“What I’m telling members now is that you are doing important work,” Ms. Jayapal said in an interview. “Just because you don’t pass the legislation you want to pass, you’re still doing important work.”

Early action included a resolution by Mr. Garcia to expel Representative George Santos of New York, a first-term Republican, after a report by The New York Times found that Mr. Santos had misrepresented , exaggerated or lied about much of his background, including his education and career history. The move ultimately failed, but it helped fuel Republican efforts to keep up pressure on Santos, who faces 23 federal charges, with their own deportation efforts.

That also failed Wednesday night, but it gave Republicans a tough vote that allowed Democrats to emphasize the Republican Party’s support for a colleague they would rather not be associated with.

Over the summer, Mr. Casar staged a daylong thirst strike on the Capitol steps to protest the lack of federal heat protection for workers. Two days later, the White House laid out a plan to address heat-related issues for workers.

In April, Ms. Ramirez, the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, was among a group of Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee who visited the U.S.-Mexico border. Ms. Ramirez, whose mother crossed the border while pregnant with her more than 40 years ago, and the other Democrats attacked restrictive immigration proposals from the Republican Party.

“We need emergency resources to support the cities and states sheltering migrants,” Ms. Ramirez said at the time. “We need parole for all undocumented immigrants to keep families and communities together. We need flexible, expedited work permits. All three of these actions can be taken by the White House.”

Three months after arriving in Washington, Mr. Frost co-sponsored legislation to create a federal office that would coordinate agencies on gun violence, but upon arrival in the Republican-led House of Representatives it was effort kills. So he turned to the White House.

The ceremony marked a victory for the 26-year-old representative — the first Generation Z member of Congress — who before being elected worked for March for Our Lives, the youth-led gun control group founded by survivors of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. massacre in Parkland, Florida.

For Ms. Balint, who said her constituents are deeply concerned about the state of democracy, speaking out and taking action even without the legislature to deliver policy victories is worth it. In her resolution, she cited Ms. Greene’s past anti-Semitic statements and spread of bigoted conspiracy theories, her anti-LGBTQ comments and her praise and defense of those charged in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

“I must use whatever means I can to shed light on how bad things are right now,” Ms. Balint said on Wednesday, before it became clear that her censure would never lead to a vote. “This is not normal behavior – not even for Congress.”