THE TOP
Happy Thursday morning.
House Democrats came into this week expecting quick passage of a domestic terrorism bill focused on the growing threat from white supremacists.
Enter Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and the Squad. The bill should’ve been an easy win for the Democratic House. But now, it may be shelved for good.
H.R. 350, the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, has 207 co-sponsors (including three Republicans) and passed the House by voice vote during the last Congress. The bill would create domestic terrorism offices within the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Earlier this week, senior House Democrats said they planned to work with the Department of Justice to “tweak” the bill. Democratic leaders said a small language revision was needed to get Bush and outside groups who are opposed to the measure – such as the ACLU and the Council on American-Islamic Relations – back on board. But after talking to Squad members, it’s clear that this bill is not going to be easy to pass.
“It’s not happening… It’s a horrible bill,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) told us.
“I need a clearer definition on how we’re defining domestic terrorists and we need a longer conversation around is more money needed to support this?” Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) added.
Supporters of the bill were adamant the legislation created no new statutes and no new surveillance lists, despite claims from opponents. A major frustration among the bill’s backers is that the progressive complaints lack specificity and were raised too late in the process to actually address them without delaying the vote.
Senior Democrats had some awareness of potential problems with Bush going back to the House Judiciary Committee markup in early April. Bush was asked to “take a walk” instead of voting no on the bill in committee, multiple sources told us. Democratic leaders didn’t expect Bush to rally enough support from colleagues and outside groups to threaten the bill’s passage on the floor, however.
“We want to make sure that in the midterms, and in the midst of new districts, we aren’t politicizing this thing for opportunistic ends,” said Rep. André Carson (D-Ind.), a supporter of this legislation, when we asked if he’d spoken to Bush about her opposition.
But Bush’s effort left several Democrats fuming, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus. These members have said the legislation is needed urgently to respond to a spate of bomb threats at historically Black colleges and universities.
“I believe we need to move it along. When we see problems we need to solve them. We need to do that, and not find excuses not to,” said Rep. Alma Adams (D-N.C.), who has led the effort to condemn the HBCU bomb threats.
| → | Yet there’s also a broader undercurrent at play here. It’s illustrative of both the evolving dynamics within the Democratic Caucus and the CBC specifically. And it’s another example of the ongoing tension between some members of the Squad and the CBC. |
CBC members have long been concerned that progressive challengers backed by prominent liberal groups have singled out Black incumbents as their targets. Bush herself did this in 2020 defeating Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), a popular CBC member whose father helped found the group.
Those tensions have persisted. Senior CBC members were upset that Squad members who belong to the caucus didn’t come to a special swearing-in for Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) after she won a special election in November, for instance.
Bush’s relationship with the CBC, in particular, was described by several CBC members as “strained,” “complicated” and “non-existent.”
While several CBC members said they wanted to have a relationship with Bush following her ouster of Clay, they also complained the first-term lawmaker makes no effort to attend CBC meetings or interact with the broader group. None of these Democrats wanted to speak on the record, requesting anonymity to explain internal CBC dynamics.
This episode, however, speaks to some of the challenges facing the CBC in a changing Congress. Some younger Democrats see themselves more as individual players than members of the group. And the once muted divisions along generational, geographical and even ideological lines now are on public display.
Yet the power of the CBC – and what’s made it so important inside the larger House Democratic Caucus – is its unity. Being able to swing 50-plus votes among 221 often-fractious House Democrats gives the CBC more power than any other voting bloc.
Several Democrats – some members of the CBC, some not – privately criticized Bush, saying she’s more interested in promoting her own priorities and brand than working together with other Democrats.
“I mean, we’re part of the CBC,” Bush responded when asked about her relationship with the caucus.
But Bush explains her standing within the caucus differently, telling us she still has the mentality of an activist despite serving in Congress. Bush, a prominent Black Lives Matter figure, led the protests in Ferguson, Mo., after a white police officer shot and killed unarmed Black teenager Michael Brown in 2014.
Bush garnered national attention last year when she bucked Democratic leaders and led a multi-day protest to oppose the Biden administration’s decision not to extend the federal eviction moratorium. Bush slept on the Capitol steps as part of her stand against the administration. The Biden administration bowed to the pressure campaign, extending the eviction moratorium only to have the Supreme Court strike down the extension a few weeks later.
“I see things differently than the folks that were not out there [in the BLM movement],” Bush told us Wednesday evening. “So I think that that makes a difference.”
