Across the country, unapologetically left-leaning candidates are having a moment. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Michigan Senate hopeful Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, and Randy Villegas in California’s 22nd Congressional District have all ridden a wave of populist enthusiasm to victory or contention. But in the race to succeed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Congress, San Francisco voters are split between two Democrats who both describe themselves in progressive terms — and whose disagreement over housing policy may prove more consequential than any national trend.

San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, who has Pelosi’s backing, portrays herself as a champion of working families who won’t be swayed by corporate political money or the tech industry that has thrown its support behind her rival, state Sen. Scott Wiener. Chan has called Wiener, a longtime LGBTQ rights advocate who made national headlines for legislation aimed at exposing the identities of ICE agents, a “corporate Democrat funded by billionaires.”

But Chan’s record — marked by opposition to development projects and rezoning efforts in her own district — could turn off some progressive voters, particularly newcomers to city politics. For decades, San Francisco residents have resisted new construction, often prioritizing neighborhood preservation over adding housing supply.

That resistance has helped fuel the city’s housing crisis. Rents have climbed to record highs as the Bay Area’s AI-driven tech boom pours money into the local economy; one recent industry report found the average one-bedroom apartment now rents for more than $4,000 a month.

“Progressivism in San Francisco has become tightly wound up with an identity that refuses to accept a lot of things,” said Jane Natoli, a housing advocate who lives in Chan’s district and supports Wiener. “For some reason, especially on housing, San Francisco progressives have mostly just said no.”

In June’s primary, voters favored both Wiener and Chan over Saikat Chakrabarti, a former aide to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who energized younger voters with rhetoric reminiscent of Mamdani and Sen. Bernie Sanders. The tech entrepreneur agreed with Wiener on the need to build more housing but coupled that stance with a broader anti-establishment, anti-capitalist message.

“I liked him a lot because his approach to YIMBY politics was conciliatory,” said Alex Vanscoy, Chakrabarti’s former field director. Vanscoy now backs Chan, who has pledged to refuse money from corporate political action committees. “Taking lobbyist money is a very serious thing to me,” Chan said.

Both candidates agree that affordability is the top concern for San Franciscans and that the city faces a housing shortage across every income level. Where they diverge sharply is on what role the state and federal governments should play in solving it.

**What’s driving the housing crisis?**

Wiener believes the state must require — not simply encourage — local governments to build more housing, particularly in cities and counties that have long resisted new development. A leading voice in the YIMBY and “abundance” movements, he authored legislation, now law, that cut red tape for certain housing permits, a move that pleased both labor groups and developers. Local officials have told the Legislature that the streamlining law has slashed average permitting timelines from years down to three to six months.

Chan, by contrast, has largely opposed new housing and development proposals in her district, saying her priority is protecting tenants from eviction and shielding small businesses from the disruption of construction. She often points to the “urban renewal” of the Fillmore District from the 1950s through the 1970s, which devastated San Francisco’s Black community, as a cautionary tale she doesn’t want repeated elsewhere. That painful history, in fact, helped give rise to the city’s modern progressive movement.

“I think we’re starting to see the real dividing line,” said Eric Kingsbury, a Wiener supporter and chair of the San Francisco County Central Committee, the local arm of the Democratic Party. “I really expect to see a lot of discomfort, because if you’re pro-housing and you’re a progressive person, you have a candidate in this race, and that’s Scott Wiener.”

Chan, one of the board’s four most progressive supervisors, recently voted against Mayor Daniel Lurie’s residential rezoning plan — a state-mandated overhaul designed to allow taller, denser housing near transit stops and major corridors. She previously led a lawsuit against the state, arguing its housing mandates unfairly targeted San Francisco. Chan said she opposed Lurie’s plan because it lacked sufficient protections against the demolition of rent-controlled housing and the displacement of tenants and small businesses.

“We can still demand accountability, we can still conduct environmental reviews, and at the same time make government more efficient,” Chan said.

“It’s ridiculous when people say I’m against development,” said Norman Yee, a former San Francisco supervisor who supports Chan. “All she wants is to make sure, first, that tenants aren’t displaced, and second, that community concerns are addressed.”

In 2021, Chan helped block a nearly 500-unit mixed-income housing proposal slated for a vacant parking lot just a block from a BART station — a decision that drew a scathing rebuke from the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board, which accused the city’s then-eight progressive supervisors of sabotaging “seemingly every serious attempt to address this city’s housing crisis.”

Beyond housing, Chan also fought a plan to add dedicated bus lanes along a corridor that, before the pandemic, carried one of the busiest bus routes in the country, objecting to the loss of parking spaces and warning of harm to small businesses during construction. The city’s transit agency approved the project anyway.

Chan has also pushed back against Sacramento’s growing role in local planning and zoning decisions, arguing that corporate developers and Wall Street real estate interests have persuaded lawmakers like Wiener to let them bypass local review processes. Wiener has dismissed the charge as misleading and “trivial.”

Chan points to her support for a recently opened affordable senior housing project — 98 units built on the site of a former funeral home — as proof she isn’t anti-development. No existing tenants were displaced, she noted, since the building went up on vacant land.

“I always joke that if anyone got displaced from that site, it would be a ghost from the funeral home,” Chan said.

In her campaign launch video, Chan promises to deliver “real affordable housing, not Sacramento’s version that destroys our neighborhoods.”

Wiener countered that the project, which opened last November, was made possible largely because of his own Senate Bill 35 — a landmark law he authored to speed up housing permits — along with roughly $60 million in state funding.

“If what you want to do is make it harder and more expensive to build housing, or even impossible, then that’s not progressive,” Wiener said. “That’s conservative.”

It remains unclear whether San Francisco voters who backed Chakrabarti, who won about 18% of the primary vote in June, will now consolidate behind Chan or Wiener heading into November.

**Other flashpoints**

Housing isn’t the only issue shaping the race.

Wiener, who is Jewish, drew criticism from some progressives after initially declining to use the word “genocide” to describe the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Following public pressure after a tense candidate forum, Wiener reversed course, explaining his shift in a video posted to social media.

The about-face proved awkward and alienated enough members of the Jewish community that Wiener stepped down as chair of the Legislature’s Jewish caucus. Others dismissed the change as symbolic and overdue. Months later, pro-Palestinian demonstrators confronted him so aggressively during the city’s Trans March that he was forced to leave the event.

Wiener’s wavering on the word “genocide” has bred distrust among younger voters, said Kaizen Betts-LaCroix, another former Chakrabarti staffer now supporting Chan. Betts-LaCroix said Chan’s unequivocal opposition to U.S. military aid for Israel, along with her refusal to accept corporate PAC money, are the main reasons behind the endorsement.

Wiener’s campaign has also faced backlash over aggressive attack tactics, including repeating a misleading claim that Chakrabarti actually lived in Maryland, and a now-deleted AI parody chatbot that impersonated Chan and mocked her record of blocking housing and other development projects.

Pelosi, who has used her considerable influence to boost Chan’s candidacy, quickly condemned the chatbot and rallied prominent Democrats — including seven congresswomen and former Mayor Willie Brown — to join her in denouncing it.

“Women have spent generations fighting to have our voices heard in the halls of power,” Pelosi wrote on social media. “We shouldn’t have to now fight AI for putting words in our mouths.”

Within days, Wiener’s campaign took down the site, pulled billboards promoting it, and apologized for offending voters, acknowledging that the stunt had “missed the mark.”

Original source: CalMatters

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While much of the country watches insurgent left-wing candidates like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani energize voters, San Francisco’s own version of that political moment looks different. Here, the choice isn’t between establishment and outsider — it’s between two Democrats who both claim the progressive mantle but disagree fundamentally on how to solve the city’s housing affordability crisis.

San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, who has Pelosi’s backing, has cast herself as a champion of working-class renters and small businesses, someone unswayed by corporate money or the tech industry dollars fueling her rival’s campaign. She has repeatedly labeled state Sen. Scott Wiener — a longtime LGBTQ rights advocate who drew national attention for legislation aimed at unmasking ICE agents — as a “corporate Democrat bankrolled by billionaires.”

But Chan’s record of blocking housing developments and resisting zoning reforms in her district may not sit well with younger or newer voters who see unchecked rent increases as the more urgent crisis. San Francisco has a long history of favoring neighborhood preservation over new construction, a pattern many observers say helped create the shortage the city faces today. Rents have climbed to record highs amid the Bay Area’s artificial intelligence boom, with one industry report putting the median one-bedroom rental above $4,000 a month.

“Progressivism in San Francisco has really become very tied to this identity where it doesn’t say ‘yes’ to a lot of stuff,” said Jane Natoli, a housing advocate who lives in Chan’s district and supports Wiener. “For whatever reason, especially on issues such as housing, San Francisco progressives have largely said ‘no.'”

In June’s primary, voters passed over former Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez aide Saikat Chakrabarti, who drew enthusiasm from younger, more left-leaning voters with a message that blended Bernie Sanders-style populism with strong support for new housing construction. Alex Vanscoy, who served as Chakrabarti’s field director, said he appreciated the candidate’s approach because it combined an anti-corporate stance with support for building more homes. Now Vanscoy backs Chan, who has pledged to refuse corporate PAC money. “Taking money from lobbyists is a huge issue to me,” Chan has said.

Wiener and Chan both agree that affordability tops the list of concerns for San Francisco residents and that the city needs more housing at every income level. Where they diverge sharply is on what role state and federal government should play in getting that housing built.

Wiener argues local governments — particularly ones that have long slow-walked new development — need to be held to their housing commitments, not simply allowed to promise progress without delivering it. As one of the state’s leading voices in the “abundance” and Yes In My Backyard movements, he authored legislation, since signed into law, that streamlined permitting for certain housing projects. City officials have told state lawmakers the changes cut typical permit wait times from years down to three to six months.

Chan, by contrast, has consistently opposed development and zoning changes she believes threaten existing tenants and neighborhood small businesses. She has pointed to the destructive “urban renewal” of the Fillmore District in the mid-20th century — displacement that devastated the city’s Black community — as a cautionary tale she doesn’t want repeated elsewhere. That history, in fact, helped shape the very brand of progressive politics now on display in this race.

“I think we’re starting to see the real divide show up,” said Eric Kingsbury, who chairs the San Francisco Democratic Party’s county committee and backs Wiener. “I would really expect to see a lot of discomfort, because if you are pro-housing and you’re an otherwise progressive person, you have a candidate in this race, and it’s Scott Wiener.”

Chan, among the board’s most left-leaning supervisors, recently voted against Mayor Daniel Lurie’s rezoning plan, a state-mandated effort to allow taller, denser housing near transit corridors. She previously supported a lawsuit challenging the state’s housing mandates as unfairly targeting San Francisco, and she has said her opposition to Lurie’s plan stems from its lack of protections against the loss of rent-controlled units and the displacement of tenants and merchants.

“We can still have accountability, we can still have environmental review and improve government efficiency at the same time,” Chan said.

Former Supervisor Norman Yee, a Chan supporter, pushed back on the idea that she opposes growth altogether. “I think for people to say that she’s anti-development is kind of ridiculous,” Yee said. “All she wants is to make sure that number one, tenants don’t get displaced, and two, to make sure that community concerns are addressed.”

Still, Chan’s record includes helping derail a proposed 500-unit mixed-income project near a BART station in 2021 — a decision that prompted a scathing San Francisco Chronicle editorial accusing the board’s progressive majority of undermining nearly every serious attempt to address the housing shortage. She has also opposed transit improvements, including a dedicated bus lane on Geary Boulevard, over concerns about lost parking and disruption to nearby businesses. The city’s transit agency approved the project regardless.

Chan maintains that state intervention in local zoning serves corporate developers and Wall Street real estate interests more than everyday residents, an argument Wiener dismisses as unfounded and outdated. She points to her support for a 98-unit affordable senior housing project — built on the site of a vacant funeral home, meaning no renters were displaced — as evidence she isn’t opposed to development done the right way. “I always make this joke that if anybody got evicted from the site, it was a ghost from the funeral home,” Chan said. In campaign materials, she has promised to “build real affordable housing, not the Sacramento version that destroys our neighborhoods.”

Wiener counters that the same project was made possible in large part by his own Senate Bill 35, a state law designed to speed up housing approvals, along with roughly $60 million in state funding. “If you’re trying to make it harder and more expensive to build housing, or even impossible to build, then that’s not progressive,” Wiener said. “That’s conservative.”

Whether the roughly 18% of primary voters who backed Chakrabarti will now side with Chan or Wiener remains an open question heading into November.

Housing isn’t the only flashpoint in the race. Wiener, who is Jewish, drew criticism from some progressives after initially declining to describe the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as a genocide. Following a heated candidate forum and mounting public pressure, he reversed course, explaining his shift in a video posted to social media. That reversal proved costly: he stepped down as chair of the Legislative Jewish Caucus after backlash from members of the Jewish community, while others dismissed the change as insincere. Months later, pro-Palestinian demonstrators confronted him so forcefully at the city’s trans march that he left the event early.

Kaizen Betts-LaCroix, another former Chakrabarti staffer now supporting Chan, said Wiener’s shifting position on Gaza has damaged his credibility with younger voters, adding that Chan’s firm opposition to military aid for Israel and her refusal of corporate PAC money were key reasons for their support.

Wiener’s campaign has also faced its own controversies, including repeating a since-debunked claim that Chakrabarti actually lived in Maryland, and launching a satirical AI chatbot mimicking Chan that mocked her housing record. Pelosi quickly condemned the chatbot, rallying several prominent Democrats — including seven congresswomen and former Mayor Willie Brown — in opposition. “Women have spent generations fighting to have our own voices heard in the halls of power,” Pelosi wrote on social media. “We should not have to now fight against artificial intelligence putting words in our mouths.” Within days, Wiener’s campaign took the chatbot offline, removed related billboards and apologized, acknowledging the effort had “missed the mark.”

Original source: CalMatters

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With Border Patrol agents due to arrive, Ms. Pelosi issued the stark warning along with Kevin Mullin, a fellow Democratic representative, who represents the small slice of San Francisco that Ms. Pelosi doesn’t. President Trump has said several times in recent weeks that he wanted to send federal forces to the city.

“While the President may enjoy absolute immunity courtesy of his rogue Supreme Court, those who operate under his orders do not,” they wrote in a statement on Wednesday. “Our state and local authorities may arrest federal agents if they break California law — and if they are convicted, the President cannot pardon them.”

A spokeswoman with the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The idea appears to have come from Brooke Jenkins, the San Francisco district attorney. Ms. Jenkins said in an interview on Wednesday that she came up with the strategy after seeing federal agents repeatedly roughing up people in Los Angeles and Chicago.

If federal agents came to her city and did the same, District Attorney Jenkins decided, she would treat them like anybody else breaking the law and would seek to prosecute them.

Hit people with batons? Beat them up? Not on her watch, she said.

“I had lead time to think about what authority I have and what I can do,” she said. “This is something I felt very strongly about, and I had my office research it.”

District Attorney Jenkins said she had communicated with the San Francisco Police Department about arresting federal agents for “clear, excessive use of force” and that the agency was on board with the concept. A spokesman for the department did not return a request for comment on Wednesday.

District Attorney Jenkins said she did not envision police officers handcuffing federal agents in full view on city streets. Instead, she said, local law enforcement could review camera footage of beatings, if they occur, and try to identify the agent involved. Then, she said, she would ask a judge to sign a warrant for the agent’s arrest and seek to prosecute the agent in court.

“For me, this is about San Francisco and what I need to do for San Francisco,” she said.

That could be much easier said than done. Many federal agents are operating in masks and without badges or other identification; a California law barring agents from wearing masks does not take effect until January and even then is quite likely to face legal challenges. And the Trump administration could seek immunity for its officers or ignore the warrants altogether, Ms. Jenkins acknowledged.

She said she had not discussed her idea with other prosecutors in California or around the country.

District Attorney Jenkins shared the idea on X earlier this month after Marc Benioff, the chief executive of Salesforce, said that he would support President Trump sending National Guard troops to San Francisco. (Mr. Benioff later recanted and apologized for his statement on the Guard.)

The ability of states to arrest federal officers is murky, and without much legal precedent, said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. A state cannot unduly interfere with the ability of a federal agent to enforce federal law, he said, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have the legal right to apprehend individuals suspected of being in the country illegally.

“As long as the ICE agents are acting legally, the state can’t prosecute them and hold them liable, even if it dislikes what they’re doing,” Mr. Chemerinsky said.

But immigration agents who overstep their legal bounds — for instance, by using excessive force — could be sued in California, he said.

“I think the ICE agents can be sued, for battery, for excessive force, in state court, and I think they can be similarly prosecuted,” Mr. Chemerinsky said. “If ICE agents act beyond their legal authority, and violate state law in doing so, they can be prosecuted.”

In their statement, Representatives Pelosi and Mullin made clear that they believed federal immigration agents had overstepped their authority in other situations.

“Reports of a planned mass immigration raid in the Bay Area are an appalling abuse of law enforcement power,” they wrote. “Broad sweeps that target families and terrorize law-abiding residents betray our nation’s values and waste resources that should focus on real threats to public safety.”

Spokespeople for both Democrats declined to further explain how they believed local or state police should arrest federal agents.

Representative Sam Liccardo, a Democrat who previously served as the mayor of San Jose, said he had spoken with colleagues and local law enforcement officials about such an action.

“All law enforcement must comply with the Constitution,” he said, “and to the extent that there’s a violation of federal or state constitutional protections or civil liberties, there’s certainly a basis for asserting a violation.”

In other cities where the federal government has escalated immigration enforcement, local authorities have complained that federal agents have bent the law and abused civilians.

Representative Ro Khanna, another Bay Area Democrat, has pushed for a requirement that immigration agents wear body cameras and visibly display their names during operations.

“The issue is, a lot of these ICE agents are harassing American citizens,” he said. “They’re acting in a lawless way.”

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Eric Ting | Contributed

A few days after California Gov. Gavin Newsom blasted the national Democratic Party for lacking a “counteroffensive” to GOP-led culture war attacks, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi returned fire on her fellow California Democrat — though she probably shouldn’t have, given the full context of the governor’s remarks.

While appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday, Pelosi was told by host Margaret Brennan that “Newsom said Democrats have failed to target Republicans” on the issue of abortion. The House Speaker was then shown a brief clip of Newsom at a press conference stating, “Where is the Democratic Party? Where’s the party? Why are we calling this out? This is a concerted, coordinated effort. And yes, they’re winning. We need to stand up. Where’s the counteroffensive?”

“Madam Speaker, why were pro-abortion rights Democrats outmaneuvered?” Brennan asked.

“I have no idea,” Pelosi replied. “The fact is that we have been fighting for a woman’s right to choose, and that is to choose. We have been fighting against the Republicans in the Congress constantly because the fact is they’re not just anti-woman’s right to choose in terms of terminating a pregnancy, but in terms of access to contraception and family planning and the rest, both domestically and globally. This is a constant fight that we’ve had for generations, decades, I should say in my case in the Congress.”

She went on to say of Newsom, “I have no idea why anybody would make that statement unless they were unaware of the fight that has been going on.”

A couple important notes: 1. In the sound bite CBS played for Pelosi, Newsom was discussing social and cultural issues more broadly, not just abortion. Here are Newsom’s comments that immediately preceded the clip Pelosi was shown:

“I felt this enormous sense of frustration, like where the hell’s my party? Where’s the Democratic Party? You guys paying attention to what’s going on? It wasn’t just the initiation of so much of this that came out of the private right of action and the actions in Texas, but all these other bills, that are just cookie-cutter bills that are being spun out in states all across the country, across a spectrum of issues.”

2. Newsom specifically went out of his way to exempt Pelosi and House Democrats from his criticism. Rather, he said he was criticizing certain Senate Democrats (Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema) for their opposition to eliminating the filibuster, as well as the party-at-large for being unable to develop a coherent counter message to the GOP on issues ranging from LGBT rights to race relations.

“These culture wars, where is the counteroffensive in the Democratic Party?” Newsom said. “Why aren’t we waking up to that? And it’s not an indictment, it’s not about the leader of the House of Representatives, she’s across the spectrum delivering, it’s just not getting through the door in the Senate. The president is doing all he can to deal with a hundred different crises… I applaud him for all of that work as well. It’s about us as Democrats doing a better job to coordinate a more disciplined counteroffensive and message across the spectrum.”

Of any possible federal legislation, Newsom said, “We’ve seen this across a spectrum of issues, things getting stuck in Congress, I can’t take anymore Manchins, I can’t take it.”

CBS did not show any of that context to Pelosi. The network framed Newsom’s remarks as the governor attacking national Democrats over the issue of abortion specifically, which was very much not the governor’s argument. (The House has already passed a bill codifying Roe v. Wade into federal law, which Newsom seemed to indirectly allude to when he said Pelosi is “across the spectrum delivering.”)

Regardless of whether CBS producers were themselves unaware of the context behind Newsom’s remarks, or whether it was their intent to mislead (it’s probably the former), they succeeded in inducing a headline – making reaction out of Pelosi.

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Dawn Bancroft, 59, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of illegally demonstrating, picketing or parading inside the Capitol, which carries a maximum sentence of six months in prison.

However, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan questioned why prosecutors had not pursued more severe charges of threatening a member of Congress after Bancroft was seen on video inside the Capitol saying she was looking for Pelosi to “shoot her in the friggin’ brain.”

“It’s very troubling to hear that the reason [she] was at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was essentially to murder the speaker of the House,” said Sullivan.

Bancroft described the remark as a “stupid, juvenile comment,” adding that she “did not mean it” as Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Murphy noted she made the comment while leaving the building and there was no indication she intended to act on it.

Her attorney added that Bancroft did not post the video online but instead shared it with her children and a few others, including a friend who shared it with the FBI.

Sullivan said Bancroft was “fortunate” not to face more serious charges and asked her to think about how “good people who never got into trouble with the law on Jan. 6 morphed into terrorists.”

“I’m guilty,” Bancroft told Sullivan. “And I’m going to take the consequences.”

Diana Santo-Smith, 32, who traveled to Washington, D.C., with Bancroft and appeared alongside her in the incriminating video also pleaded guilty to the same charge on Tuesday.

Sullivan told Santos-Smith she would face intense questioning when the pair are sentenced on Jan. 25.

“We’re going to have a long talk … about what the heck you were thinking,” he said. “How did you get yourself into this mess?”

Daniel Uria | Contributed

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Now things have changed. Last night on Capitol Hill:

Tensions rose as lawmakers returned for the evening session and a band of moderate lawmakers threatened to withhold their votes for the $3.5 trillion plan. They were demanding the House first approve a $1 trillion package of road, power grid, broadband and other infrastructure projects that’s already passed the Senate.

But as the evening dragged on the chamber came to a standstill and plans were thrown into flux as leaders and lawmakers huddled privately at the Capitol trying to broker an agreement.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi implored Democrats during a private caucus not to bog down and miss this chance to deliver on the promises Biden and the party have made to Americans.

The $1-trillion “infrastructure” bill, along with its Bernie Sanders–crafted $3.5-trillion “reconciliation” bill, are falling apart fast. The Associated Press is making no bones about it. Nancy Pelosi is begging her own moderates to play ball, and time is running out. Nine Democrats are vowing to withhold votes, likely because they are hearing from voters, and Pelosi can afford to lose only three. These Democrats seem to be OK with passing the $1-trillion “infrastructure” stimulus but are balking at attaching the $3.5-trillion rider, which is all about pork — free education, a Green New Deal, amnesty for illegals, election-rigging, and metering cars to tax them on how far they drive among the goodies, and taxpayers or the monetary presses left to pay the bills. Might that sudden hesitation be because of Biden’s failure in Afghanistan? It’s as good a guess as any. Nobody likes to be associated with a loser, and Joe Biden’s popularity with the public has taken on water fast. The media fawning is vanishing. Why attach your name to this pig of a bill as voters are rejecting Biden as incompetent? The recalcitrant Democrats, numbering nine, are likely hearing from voters who have had enough and can see the guided missile this pork bill has in store for the economy and the American way of life. For one thing, the oversized pork bill should bankrupt America at a time of high inflation, leaving the country in a sea of Argentina-like debt with no cash for a national security emergency, as Sen. Joe Manchin has pointed out. Think we might get some national security challenges now that tens of thousands of Afghani refugees are being let in with uncertain vetting, and China and Russia are licking their chops? Beyond that, the amnesty should encourage millions more border-crossers as if there weren’t already enough with Joe’s open border. Those are just a couple of things, and potential for greenie corruption in this bill is bound to be amazing.

The Democrats had been docile under Pelosi’s thumb, right up until the Afghanistan catastrophe. Apparently, some are waking up, not out of a sudden concern for fiscal discipline, but more likely a desire to keep their congressional seats. They know that a red wave is coming with this Afghanistan fiasco, and it’s going to get big soon. The so-called moderate Democrats resemble rats now, fleeing a sinking ship, although to be fair, the big ‘rats are staying behind. Nancy Pelosi is holding fat-cat fundraisers where only dark-skinned servants wear masks in tony Napa County, California. On the Senate side, Chuck Schumer is hoofing around to gangsta rap with Stephen Colbert in New York’s Central Park, both fiddling while Afghanistan burns.

It seems that for Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, who continuously tell us all’s well in Afghanistan and Joe’s the hero, reality is coming to bite them. The Taliban have a clarifying effect on voters. Joe’s signature accomplishment bill is now collapsing. Afghanistan’s eating Joe’s and Nancy’s pork.

Monica Showalter | Columnist

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Striking a deal with moderates, House Democratic leaders muscled President Joe Biden’s multitrillion-dollar budget blueprint over a key hurdle Tuesday, ending a risky standoff and putting the party’s domestic infrastructure agenda back on track.

The 220-212 vote was a first move toward drafting Biden’s $3.5 trillion rebuilding plan this fall, and the narrow outcome, in the face of unanimous Republican opposition, signaled the power a few voices have to alter the debate and the challenges ahead still threatening to upend the president’s agenda.

From the White House, Biden praised the outcome as “a step closer to truly investing in the American people.” He said at a news conference that he had called to congratulate House leaders for the work.

Tensions had flared during a turbulent 24 hours that brought the House to a standstill as a band of moderate lawmakers threatened to withhold their votes for the $3.5 trillion plan. They were demanding the House first approve a nearly $1 trillion bipartisan package of other public works projects that’s already passed the Senate.

Backed by the White House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi huddled privately with lawmakers and leaders to engineer an offramp. In brokering the compromise, Pelosi committed to voting on the bipartisan package no later than Sept. 27, an attempt to assure lawmakers it won’t be left on the sidelines. It’s also in keeping with with Pelosi’s insistence that the two bills move together as a more complete collection of Biden’s priorities. Pelosi has set a goal of passing both by Oct. 1.

Pelosi told her colleagues before the vote that the legislation would lead to a federal investment on par with the New Deal and the Great Society.

She brushed aside the delays. “That’s just part of the legislative process,” she said, according to an aide granted anonymity to discuss a closed-door caucus meeting.

“Not only are we building the physical infrastructure of America, we are building the human infrastructure of America,” Pelosi said on the House floor.

Easing off the stalemate will shelve, for now, the stark divisions between moderate and progressive lawmakers who make up the Democrats’ so-slim House majority. But as the drama spilled out during what was supposed to be a quick session as lawmakers returned to work for a few days in August, it showcased the party differences that threaten to upend Biden’s ambitious rebuilding agenda.

With Republicans fully opposed to the president’s big plans and arguing that Congress should be focused instead on the crisis in Afghanistan, the Democratic leaders have just a few votes to spare. That gives any band of lawmakers leverage that can be used to make or break a deal, as they are in position to do in the weeks to come as moderates and progressives draft and vote on the broader $3.5 trillion package.

“I think it’s important to those of us who are moderate Democrats to make sure that our voices are heard,” said Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., one of the negotiators.

Challenging their party’s most powerful leaders, nine moderate Democrats signed onto a letter late last week raising their objections to pushing ahead with Biden’s broader infrastructure proposal without first considering the smaller public works plan of road, public transit and broadband spending that has already passed the Senate.

Their ranks grew as other moderates, including Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., a leader of the Blue Dog caucus of centrist Democrats, raised similar concerns.

Progressives were outraged at the moderates, blaming them for potentially jamming Biden’s agenda, which is stocked with hard-fought party goals like child care, paid family leave and Medicare expansion, along with green infrastructure spending.

Outside groups, including Justice Democrats, started running campaign ads and members of Our Revolution, the organization aligned with Bernie Sanders, protested Tuesday outside the New Jersey office of Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a leader of the moderate effort.

“This is a ‘which side are you on‘ moment,'” said Our Revolution executive director Joseph Geevarghese, who promised to “organize like never before to hold Democrats accountable and get this bill over the finish line.”

The budget measure is at the heart of Biden’s “Build Back Better” vision for helping families and combating climate change and is progressives’ top priority, all of it largely financed with tax increases on the rich and big business.

The House committees are already fast at work drafting legislation to fill in the details of the $3.5 trillion package for consideration later this fall.

Progressives signaled early on they wanted the Biden budget priorities first before they agree to the smaller Senate package, worried it would be an insufficient down-payment on his goals.

But the moderates want the opposite, insisting Congress quickly send the smaller, bipartisan infrastructure measure they helped shape with the senators to Biden so he can sign it before the political winds shift.

While the moderates insist they also want to support Biden’s broader package, progressives are skeptical. Senate centrists Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., have said they cannot support a $3.5 trillion package.

In fact, the moderates were also trying to win assurances from Pelosi that whatever version of the broader bill they draft in the House will be the same in the Senate — setting up another showdown between the party’s competing flanks and their vision for the rebuilding priorities.

“We have established a path forward,” Gottheimer said in a statement.

The compromise structured Tuesday’s vote to include passage of the budget resolution and the commitment for the September vote on the bipartisan package as part of a procedural vote, called the Rule.

So far, the White House has backed Pelosi as she has led her party in a tightly scripted strategy.

Republicans plan to reject the the $3.5 trillion effort as big government spending, and GOP support for the slimmer $1 trillion bipartisan measure is now uncertain.

The conservative House Freedom Caucus said it opposes both the Biden budget and the bipartisan bill.

Republicans blasted Democrats for pursuing their priorities at a time when they said all focus should be on Afghanistan, as thousands of people including Americans are trying to flee the country as the U.S. withdraws its forces.

“We should be doing nothing else on this floor until every single American is home,” said Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader.

Inserting his own wedge into the politics of the situation, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday on Fox News that he was rooting for the House moderates.

“I wish the moderates in the House success,” McConnell said. “I’m pulling for them.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Confronting their party’s most powerful leaders, moderate Democrats are tapping the brakes on President Joe Biden’s multitrillion-dollar domestic program and insisting on their own priorities first in a smaller infrastructure deal. The interparty showdown is headed for a test vote Monday evening in the House.

The band of moderates has threatened to oppose a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint unless the House first approves a $1 trillion package of road, power grid, broadband and other infrastructure projects that’s already passed the Senate. They could conceivably sink the fiscal blueprint in the narrowly divided House.

With most of Biden’s domestic agenda at stake, it’s unimaginable that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., would let her own party’s centrists deal him an embarrassing defeat. That’s especially true with the president already under criticism over his handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and with Democrats’ prospects uncertain in the 2022 elections for control of Congress.

Pelosi implored lawmakers Monday afternoon to come together, saying there is no time to waste. “We must not squander our Congressional Democratic Majorities and jeopardize the once-in-a-generation opportunity to create historic change to meet the needs of working families,” she said in a letter to colleagues before the session.

Members of the House returned to Washington on Monday in what Democratic leaders hope will be just a two-day interruption of lawmakers’ August recess to make gains on Biden’s priorities. Leaders want quick approval of the budget resolution, which will set the stage this fall for setting further legislation directing $3.5 trillion at safety net, environment and other programs over the next decade. Lawmakers were scheduled to huddle privately before the vote for a caucus meeting.

That huge measure comprises the heart of Biden’s vision for helping families and combating climate change and is progressives’ top priority, all of it largely financed with tax increases on the rich and big business.

But the moderates want Congress to quickly send the smaller, bipartisan infrastructure measure to Biden so he can sign it before the political winds shift. That would nail down a victory they could point to in their reelection campaigns next year.

“The House can’t afford to wait months or do anything to risk passing” the infrastructure bill, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., said late last week. He’s a leader of the nine moderate mavericks who each released statements reaffirming a desire that the infrastructure vote come first, and others may join them.

Pelosi, backed by the White House, is leading her party in a tightly-scripted strategy that aims to keep moderate and progressive lawmakers on board for what would be a landmark federal investment and the cornerstone of Biden’s domestic policy agenda. In the narrowly divided Congress, to pass any legislation over solid GOP opposition, Democrats can lose no more than three votes in the House.

The Monday evening procedural vote on the infrastructure measures, as well as a voting rights bill, another top Democratic goal, will test the strategy ahead.

Some solution averting a Biden setback in the House seems likely. Leaders were in talks with lawmakers signaling they want both infrastructure bills passed by Oct. 1, an ambitious schedule. Pelosi, top House Democrat since 2003, has a long history of doing what it takes to line up the votes she needs on important issues.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday underscored Biden’s support for Pelosi’s plans. Psaki deemed it a “healthy debate” within the party and said that it was “a high-class problem to have” as Democrats debate the particulars of the legislation.

So far, neither the moderates nor the powerful forces confronting them were showing signs of budging. The party’s progressive members are vowing to withhold their votes on the infrastructure bill unless the larger measure focused on expanding child care, Medicare and providing for paid family leave is passed.

Biden met virtually with Pelosi and other Democratic leaders and committee chairs late last week. In a show of solidarity, the White House and Pelosi issued similar statements afterward underscoring their determination to approve both measures soon and pointedly ignoring moderates’ demand to do infrastructure first.

Unless the moderates decide to oppose the procedural measure, Democrats controlling the chamber 220-212 should be able to push it through.

Among moderates, Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, said in an interview, “No progressive is going to cram something down my throat.” Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, said failure to pass the infrastructure bill quickly “leaves the nation’s economy and crumbling infrastructure hostage to political gamesmanship.”

On the other side, progressive leader Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., said in an interview that Democrats “not actively supporting” Biden’s priorities “are not moderates,” suggesting they’re conservative.

The group Justice Democrats, which recruits progressive candidates including challengers to congressional incumbents, released a fundraising appeal saying Gottheimer was being supported by “the worst of the political establishment.” It did not identify them.

Lawmakers from both parties began Monday making their pitches prior to this week’s votes.

Democratic lawmakers framed the votes as a chance to build on the $1.9 trillion COVID-relief bill that Congress passed earlier this year that provided $1,400 stimulus checks to most Americans, boosted unemployment insurance payments and expanded the child tax credit, among other things.

“Long before the pandemic, decades of federal under-investment in climate, education, housing, childcare, health care and other sectors have made it harder for American families to make ends meet and for American businesses to complete globally,” said Rep. John Yarmuth, the Democratic chairman of the House Budget Committee. “We must close these deficits now.”

Republicans said the $3.5 trillion effort that Democrats are seeking to advance fails to address “the crisis that American families are facing” and would lead to higher inflation and deficits.

“The inflation crisis, the border crisis, the energy crisis, the Afghanistan crisis — this budget only makes it worse,” said Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, top Republican on the House Budget Committee.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted on Thursday that before she will send the Republican Senate the articles of impeachment her Democratic chamber approved against President Donald Trump, GOP leaders must provide more detail about how they will handle the expected trial.

“We’d like to see a fair process, but we’ll see what they have and will be ready for whatever it is,” Pelosi said at the Capitol. “So far we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us,” she had said last Wednesday night, just after the House approved the two charges that could evict Trump from office if the Senate agrees.

The parties’ Senate leaders, Mitch McConnell for the Republicans and Chuck Schumer for the Democrats, met Thursday on trial arrangements but came to no agreement. The two men have a tense relationship, and McConnell holds a tactical edge if he can keep his 53-member Senate majority united.

Democrats are insisting on more witnesses, testimony and documents than McConnell appears willing to provide before they name the House “managers” who would prosecute Trump in the Senate.

“Sen. Schumer made clear to Sen. McConnell that the witnesses and documents are necessary to ensure a fair trial in the Senate,” said Schumer spokesman Justin Goodman. He said, “Schumer asked Sen. McConnell to consider Sen. Schumer’s proposal over the holidays.”

Last Wednesday night’s vote, almost entirely along party lines, made the president just the third in U.S. history to be impeached. The House impeached Trump on two charges — abusing his presidential power and obstructing Congress — stemming from his pressure on Ukraine to announce investigations of his political rival as Trump withheld U.S. aid.

Pelosi’s unexpected procedural delay in taking the next step — apparently in search of leverage in locking in trial arrangements — got a sour response from Senate Majority Leader McConnell and from Trump himself.

McConnell said Democrats were “too afraid″ to send the charges to the Senate, where Trump would be expected to be acquitted by the Republican majority. Trump tweeted, “Now the Do Nothing Party want to Do Nothing with the Articles.” He claimed that if the Democrats didn’t transmit the charges, “they would lose by default,” though there is no constitutional requirement to send them swiftly, or at all.

The trial has been expected to begin in January.

Along with her tough talk, Pelosi appeared upbeat the day after the impeachment votes.

“We’ve been hearing from people all over the country,” she told reporters. “Seems like people have a spring in their step because the president was held accountable for his reckless behavior.”

Pressed about next steps, Pelosi wouldn’t say. Democrats are insisting on more witnesses, testimony and documents than McConnell appears willing to provide before they name the House “managers” who would prosecute Trump in the Senate.

“The next thing will be when we see the process that is set forth in the Senate,” Pelosi said. “Then we’ll know the number of managers we may have to go forward and who we would choose.”

The Democratic speaker and the top Senate Democrat, Schumer of New York, met privately Thursday at the Capitol after Republican McConnell signaled in the strongest terms yet that his chamber intended to hold a swift trial and acquit the president of both charges.

McConnell denounced the “most unfair” House impeachment and reassured Trump and his supporters that “moments like this are why the United States Senate exists.”

As for what the Senate would do, he said, “It could not be clearer which outcome would serve the stabilizing, institution-preserving, fever-breaking role for which the United States Senate was created and which outcome would betray it.”

The Kentucky Republican described Trump’s impeachment as “the most rushed, least thorough and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history.”

Fighting back using McConnell’s own words, Schumer said the Republican leader was plotting the “most rushed, least thorough and most unfair” impeachment trial in history by declining to agree to call witnesses including former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, who declined to testify before the House.

“McConnell claimed the impeachment was motivated by partisan rage,” said Schumer. “This from the man who said proudly, ‘I am not impartial.’”

“What hypocrisy.”

Pelosi said that McConnell “says it’s OK for the foreman of the jury to be in cahoots with the lawyers of the accused. That doesn’t sound right to us.”

Complicating any decision to delay are House Democrats’ arguments in recent weeks that Trump’s impeachment was needed “urgently,” arguing his actions were a threat to democracy and the fairness of the upcoming 2020 election.

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Nancy Pelosi said she undertook impeachment “prayerfully,” and apparently what she was praying was that she could get it over with as soon as possible.

The House is preparing to send a flagrantly incomplete factual record to the Senate as the basis of an effort to remove a sitting president for the first time in our history.

Pelosi has affected a posture of heavy-heartedness since the outset of the process, saying that “there’s no joy in this” and urging a somber spirit as Democrats pursue the facts wherever they may take them — so long as that’s not too far into an election year.

In substantive terms, the Democrats had a good set of public hearings before Adam Schiff’s intelligence committee in recent weeks — with one gaping hole. They didn’t have anyone with first-hand knowledge of Trump’s directives on Ukraine or his state of mind. The closest was EU ambassador Gordon Sondland, who, still, could only “presume” a quid pro quo over the defense aid.

There are people who probably don’t have to presume, and Sondland named some of them: Trump’s personal counsel Rudy Giuliani, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. They all were closer to this than Sondland, yet Democrats are happy to make the guy from the outer bounds of the inner circle their “star witness” and forgo the inner circle. To get the more central witnesses requires litigation since they all have at least colorable claims of privilege. The Democrats don’t want to wait for the courts.

The minimum requirement of a historic impeachment case, only the fourth in our history, would seem to be a complete account of the facts. Schiff used to say as much: “We have to flesh out all of the facts for the American people. The seriousness of the matter and the danger to our country demands nothing less.” Now, the seriousness and the danger are demanding that Democrats rush things along so the president can be impeached by the end of the year.

(The Check-the-Box)

No matter how often Democrats say, “Let’s honor the Constitution,” their actions say, “Let’s check the box.”

Democrats have had the difficulty from the beginning of trying to build an edifice of impeachment and removal atop the narrow foundation of the Ukraine episode, and now they aren’t even going to finish the edifice, content with what they could complete in a two-month investigation largely reliant on the testimony of people who weren’t around for the main events (former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch) or were out of the loop (former Trump Russia adviser Fiona Hill).

With every day that passes it becomes a little more absurd to say Trump should be impeached and removed when the public can make its own verdict in the election. Besides, Democrats know that impeachment is going nowhere in the Senate, so why bother locking down the case to make it worthy of the gravity of the process?

They might as well go with what they have, a partisan impeachment pursued on a political timetable. During Bill Clinton’s impeachment, it was his defenders who were saying, “Let’s move on.” Now, it’s Trump’s pursuers, who prayerfully and sorrowfully want to get impeachment over with.

Rich Lowry is editor of the National Review.

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