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\n

House Democrats aren\u2019t letting rogue members off the hook for bucking their party. They hope Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries won\u2019t either.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, there’s got to be\u201d punishment for the two Democrats who twice this month bucked their party to advance a slate of Republican priorities, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cOtherwise, then,\u201d he said, \u201cit’s open season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats are watching closely<\/a> how \u2014 and if \u2014 Jeffries doles out consequences for Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington who have twice provided the decisive votes for GOP procedural measures this month. Jeffries and his leadership team condemned<\/a> the two members when they first defected two weeks ago, slamming a \u201cbreach of trust\u201d warranting a \u201cserious response\u201d but have yet to inflict any public consequences.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, they defied leadership a second time<\/a>, infuriating House Democrats and resurrecting questions about how leadership plans to keep its caucus in line \u2014 especially if they have a slim majority next term.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to all be united, and I think it’s pretty simple,\u201d said one House Democrat who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. \u201cIf there’s not [a punishment], I find it hard to see a path forward in the majority, which we’re all pushing for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if leadership should punish the two aisle-crossers, Rep. Troy Carter pointed to his time as minority leader of the Louisiana state Senate: \u201cWhen I had members that did not work within the confines of the philosophical views of our party, I took them off our caucus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t want to second-guess anybody’s timing, but I will tell you that these things cannot allow to fester,\u201d he added. \u201cWe have to have a strict message: Either you’re with the team on those fundamental issues of governance or you aren’t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Multiple members, including Carter, said that removing Gluesenkamp Perez from the Appropriations Committee should be considered. (While members are just as angry at Golden, they acknowledge he\u2019s beyond punishment given he is retiring at the end of this term.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI suspect that there are a number of appropriate consequences that [leaders] could implement,\u201d Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) said in an interview. \u201cAnd, ultimately, it’s their decision. I certainly don’t want that to be a caucus decision. That should be a leadership decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

One leader, Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, suggested she is open to removing Gluesenkamp Perez from Appropriations, telling reporters Wednesday morning that \u201cteam players get to sit on exclusive committees.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the first instance where the two Democrats defected on Sept. 1, Jeffries kicked the matter to a caucus rules panel, saying afterward he wanted to pursue action against the two members \u201csooner rather than later.\u201d The panel continues to deliberate<\/a> on what should happen if members vote with Republicans on procedural measures.<\/p>\n

Jeffries said that week that he\u2019d had a \u201cproductive\u201d and \u201cforward-looking\u201d conversation with Gluesenkamp Perez, but he has said much less after Tuesday\u2019s floor drama.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll have more to say about the issue when I have more to say about the issue,\u201d he told Blue Light News shortly after the vote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

House Democrats aren\u2019t letting rogue members off the hook for bucking their party. They hope Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries won\u2019t either. \u201cObviously, there’s got to be\u201d punishment for the two Democrats who twice this month bucked their party to advance a slate of Republican priorities, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said in an interview. \u201cOtherwise, then,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}