Democratic Party’s march to the left empowers Pramila Jayapal for House leadership race

Rep. Pramila Jayapal has long been floated as the potential future of the Democratic Party. I caught up with the congresswoman, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, in her district to look at the push to move the party to the left on key issues, including expanding the federal social safety net and raising the minimum wage — issues she’s fought for since her days as a local organizer.

Read the full story on The Washington Times website here.

SEATTLE — Progressive champion Rep. Pramila Jayapal is convinced that the time has arrived for a left-wing takeover of House Democratic leadership.

As chair of the influential Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Washington Democrat has become a key negotiator with the Biden administration on imposing ambitious policies such as expanding entitlements and combating climate change.

In pushing for those priorities, Ms. Jayapal clashed with the party establishment, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 82, whom Capitol insiders say she could soon succeed.

Ms. Jayapal, 56, is among several contenders to replace Mrs. Pelosi for the top spot. In that burgeoning competition, Ms. Jayapal has carved out a unique role as a commanding voice of the far-left who sees the future of the Democratic Party inextricably tied to the success of the Progressive Caucus, which is the largest ideological faction among House Democrats.

She got her start as a political organizer who helped her home city of Seattle pass some of the most expansive labor laws in the nation, including a move in 2014 that brought its citywide minimum wage to $15 an hour. It was credited with galvanizing a national effort to raise the minimum wage to the same level.

“There’s a lot of people who really don’t understand how our progressive policies here have really led the state and led the nation, and how we’ve continued to thrive,” Ms. Jayapal said in the interview with The Washington Times. “You raise the minimum wage, people do better. You provide child care, people do better and the country thrives.”

In Congress, she has sought to move her party to the left on an overhaul of government programs, including housing resources, universal pre-K, and higher spending on child care and health care access.

Her biggest challenge to replacing Ms. Pelosi atop the Democratic Caucus is getting the support of the centrist middle of the party, from which she has made a clear split. 

She has openly criticized the party’s more moderate lawmakers, as well as previous leadership of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, for barring consultants and vendors from working for incumbents’ primary challengers if they wanted to do business with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — a rule that hobbles primary challenges from the left.

Ms. Jayapal proudly wears the label of “far-left” to characterize how she sees the growing majority of the Democratic Party today.

“What is the ‘far left?’ Progressives, who make up 40% of the Democratic caucus and the vast majority of the primary electorate? We will continue to push for our voice to be recognized,” Ms. Jayapal tweeted.

At this moment, she sees her vision becoming a reality.

On President Biden’s signing of a dramatically scaled-down $740 billion version of his Build Back Better bill, Ms. Jayapal took credit for her caucus helping to get it across the finish line ahead of the midterms.

“Looking at the bill that the Senate passed, it is based on much of the bill that the Progressive Caucus was key to getting passed in the House. There was no bill originally when the infrastructure bill came over to us, but we insisted on drafting it,” Ms. Jayapal told The Times.

During those negotiations last year, progressives’ insistence on their priorities frustrated party leaders and the White House, who were pushing for a $1 trillion infrastructure package. Ms. Jayapal frequented cable news networks and threatened to hold the bipartisan infrastructure package hostage if legislation to expand the national social safety net was not first in line, despite Mrs. Pelosi’s plea to pass the infrastructure measure quickly.

“Good leaders know where the flow of the political will is going,” said Zach Silk, a Seattle activist who worked with Ms. Jayapal before she was elected to office. “The party as a whole isn’t very good at that, and neither are a lot of elected officials. With [Jayapal’s] background as an organizer, she can kind of see where the political will is headed, and the party moves along towards her.”

Ms. Jayapal was born in India and spent most of her childhood in Indonesia and Singapore. She moved to the U.S. when she was 16 to attend college at Georgetown University.

Before being sworn into Congress in 2017, she served two years as a member of the Washington state Senate, from 2014 to 2016. She is the first Indian-American woman elected to the U.S. House.

Many Democrats believe Ms. Jayapal would exemplify the party’s shift to more diverse leadership. Mrs. Pelosi is running for re-election but hasn’t said whether she plans to seek another term as leader of House Democrats, or as speaker if Democrats hold onto the majority. Two years ago, she suggested she would soon step aside for younger leadership.

“I see myself as a bridge to the next generation of leaders, a recognition of my continuing responsibility to mentor and advance new members into positions of power and responsibility in the House Democratic Caucus,” Mrs. Pelosi has said.

Ms. Jayapal has been floated as a Pelosi successor alongside Reps. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, currently assistant speaker; Adam Schiff of California, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Democratic caucus chairman.

Mr. Jeffries would be the first Black speaker and is also a member of the Progressive Caucus, though he has given extensive campaign donations to the moderate Blue Dog Coalition and New Democrat Coalition members. Mr. Jeffries’ inroads with more centrist Democrats could create a broader support network within the party.

Ms. Jayapal has dismissed speculation that she is vying for a leadership slot. But she has consistently kept herself at the forefront of national political debates.

She recently led a group of her colleagues from the Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth to Seattle to tout policies in her city that she wants to duplicate across the country.

Critics view Ms. Jayapal’s use of the bipartisan committee as a tool to advance her leadership bid.

“Some of my colleagues on the committee, including Ms. [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez and Jayapal, have used it as a platform to justify the hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes and progressive policies in their Build Back Better agenda,” said Rep. Jodey Arrington, Texas Republican.

Ms. Jayapal also has attended a large number of the high-profile hearings of the House Jan. 6 committee, prompting a crush of reporters seeking her reaction to the developments in the probe of the 2021 Capitol riot.

“It’s our duty as members of Congress to understand this completely because we know how close we were to losing our democracy that night,” Ms. Jayapal said of her attendance.

Ms. Jayapal has worked to elect like-minded candidates to the House, giving her support to several liberal contenders in open seats and newly-drawn districts whom she says could  “represent the potential of what our party could be.”

Earlier this year, Ms. Jayapal endorsed Jessica Cisneros, a far-left challenger to Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, who had the backing of the party establishment. After a recount, Mr. Cuellar was declared the winner in June by a razor-thin 289 votes.

Noel Frame, a Democratic Washington state representative who met Ms. Jayapal while she was still a community organizer, said she’s seen the same policy priorities in the lawmaker now that she had before she became a household name.

“She is the same person through and through. It’s just a bigger and bigger platform with every step she’s been able to take,” Ms. Frame said.

Her push to make her caucus the soul of the party also comes as moderates, like the New Democrat Coalition, voice the need to expand the increasingly vulnerable centrist middle.

“New Dems know that making progress is what’s truly progressive,” said Rep. Ann Kuster, New Hampshire Democrat. “A strong center is the key to our governing majority and our battleground members are an important line of defense against extremist control of Congress. As we look ahead, we must continue to embrace the growth of the moderate members in Congress.”

The New Democrat Coalition is the second largest faction of the Democratic Party made up of almost 100 members, second to the Progressive Caucus.

Rep. Jim Himes, Connecticut Democrat and former chair of the New Democrats, said Ms. Jayapal is someone who can connect with members by engaging on policy differences with an open mind, which could serve her well in rising in the ranks.

“I’m a huge believer in different points of view meeting in good faith,” Mr. Himes. “Ms. Jayapal comes from a slightly different corner of the Democratic Party than I do, but she does her work and understands her issues.”