Pelosi's hope for a divided government
Opinion // John Diaz
John Diaz Oct. 12, 2018 Updated: Oct. 12, 2018 11 p.m.
Watch John Diaz and Caille Millner interview Nancy Pelosi: https://bit.ly/2yAAfh9
Sorry to disappoint the factions on the left who are relishing revenge and the alarmists on the right who are warning of socialist apocalypse if Democrats regain control of the House in the midterms, but Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, is thinking about neither the i-word (impeachment) nor the o-word (obstruction) when she returns to the speakership.
And let there be no doubt: She wants that speaker's gavel back in January, and is willing to say so out loud.
Instead, the House minority leader was talking the b-word (bipartisanship) in her meeting on Wednesday with our editorial board.
"It's not the lowest common denominator," she said of bipartisanship. "It's the boldest common denominator."
This is not exactly what the Democratic base wants to hear or what the Republican base purports to fear. But for as much as red-state Republicans like to cast Pelosi as the unwitting running mate of their Democratic opponent, the San Francisco Democrat has shown herself to be a pragmatist in working with a Republican president, including the one she opposed "totally, completely, a million percent" on the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
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Pelosi noted that she found common ground with President George W. Bush on consequential matters such as the largest energy bill in the nation's history, international HIV/AIDS relief and the stimulus package after the 2008 economic crisis.
But is it really plausible to expect that Pelosi could similarly develop a working relationship with President Trump, who routinely mocks her at rallies, and House and Senate Republicans whose contempt for compromise across the aisle goes back into the Obama years?
"So when we win," said Pelosi, thumping the wood conference table five times for emphasis.
"It will be open and transparent," she said of the Democratic-controlled House. "It will be fair. It will be accountable to the public, and it will try to seek solutions that are unifying. This is because it is what we believe, but also because it is what we owe our founders."
She added, after a pointed reference to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's infamous 2010 pledge that the GOP's No. 1 priority was to deny President Barack Obama a second term: "One of the reasons we should win is we are not like them. We're not going to be like them."
So what does bipartisanship look like in a divided government if the Democrats regain control of the House, Republicans maintain control of the Senate as expected — and Trump is sitting there in the Oval Office with the power to sign and veto bills?
Areas of potential common ground between Democrats and Republicans
Problem: The nation's roads and bridges are in terrible shape.
Stalemate: President Trump's rollout of a $250 billion investment was overshadowed by former FBI Director James Comey's testimony that week, and stalled by GOP infighting over the size and financing of the package.
Opportunity: Lawmakers of both parties want to get something done.
Problem: The mass shootings in Parkland, Fla., Las Vegas, Orlando and too many other American cities have called attention to gaps and omissions in gun laws.
Stalemate: The GOP-led Congress has done nothing about it.
Opportunity: Polls show overwhelming support for background checks on all gun purchases as well as new restrictions on assault weapons.
'Dreamers'
Problem: Undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. by their parents at a young age are caught in legal limbo after the Trump administration moved to withdraw their protected status.
Stalemate: Trump and certain GOP congressional leaders have insisted that a border wall must be part of any deal.
Opportunity: Even the president has expressed empathy for the Dreamers' plight. It will be harder for him and other GOPers to play hardball-for-the-wall if Dems take the House.
Problem: Medicare has its hands tied in negotiating prescription drug prices.
Stalemate: Trump claims to support a more aggressive government approach to Big Pharma, but has taken only modest steps to leverage lower prices.
Opportunity: This is one of those issues of strong bipartisan consensus that keeps getting derailed in polarized Washington.
I asked Pelosi which issues might be fertile for consensus. She named four: infrastructure investment, gun violence prevention, legal protection for the Dreamers and authority for the secretary of Health and Human Services to use the federal purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices.
It's a good start. Each of those positions has widespread appeal outside and inside the Capitol. That none has become law is testament to the sorry state of gridlock in the nation's capital. One of the disturbing consequences of the devolution of civility and aversion to compromise in modern politic is that both sides — both sides — seem to think that denying the other an accomplishment is better than achieving something through a process of give and take.
Bipartisan movement on the four issues cited by Pelosi would be most welcome. They are about American values, public health and safety and fulfilling one of federal government's most basic responsibilities of building and maintaining its highways, bridges and other systems that are essential to getting people and the economy where they need to go.
However, it was noteworthy what was not mentioned: two issues that are of paramount importance to the well being of future generations — climate change and Social Security. In each case, one party is serious about addresss the issue, the other is recalcitrant in its resistance.
It is unconscionable that any politician who feigns concern "for the children" would fail to act on the coming calamity of a warming planet. A new report by the United Nations' scientific panel on climate change observed that the effects are coming to fruition faster than anticipated and that adverting a global disaster would require an economic transfortation at a speed and scale of "no documented historic precedent." Minus drastic action, the scientists projected that everything from coral reef die offs to worsening food shortages would arrive as early as 2040.
Yet the U.S. has a president who scoffs at the science, wants to increase the extraction of coal when the world should be phasing it out, and intends to withdraw from the Paris accord.
And the ruling Republicans in the House and Senate are equally neglectful to the climate crisis.
Democrats have their own object of obliviousness in Social Security. The Social Security Board of Trustees has calculated that the system would begin paying out more in benefits that it receives in annual revenue by 2022. By 2034 it is on track to have exhausted its $3 trillion in reserves.
These numbers are ominous for millennials, and help explain why polls show that a significant number of them doubt that they will ever receive any benefits in their golden years. In reality, the outlook is not quite that dire, but the prospect is very real that they will be paying higher taxes to support retired Baby Boomers, or will face reduced benefits in their own golden years.
Yet any Republican attempt to assure the sustainability of Social Security — such as raising the age for full retirement benefits or adjust the cost-of-living formula — encounters instant demagoguery from too many Democrats.
The reflexive Democratic counterproposal is to significantly raise or even eliminate the cap on income subject to the 6.2 percent payroll tax, a nonstarter for most conservatives. That limit is $128,400 this year.
So no matter what happens in the midterms, it is unlikely that either of these enormous issues will be addressed. Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking on each.
The best Americans can hope for is that a Democratic majority in the House, and in a longer shot the Senate, can put a check on the Trump administration policies that are sending the nation in the wrong direction on climate and deficits.
Pelosi's advice to Democratic candidates: Don't campaign on impeachment — or against Donald Trump the bully and misogynist.
"Don't even talk about him," she said. "He is self evidently what he is. To the candidates and to the members I say: You just connect with the voters in ways that talk about their financial stability."
John Diaz is The Chronicle's editorial page editor. Email: jdiaz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JohnDiazChron
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Before joining the opinion pages, he directed the newspaper's East Bay news coverage. He started at The Chronicle in 1990 as an assistant city editor.
John began his journalism career as a reporter for the Red Bluff Daily News. Two years later, he was promoted to the Washington, D.C., bureau of the newspaper's parent company, Donrey Media Group. After that, he worked as a general assignment reporter for the Associated Press in Philadelphia and as a statehouse reporter and assistant city editor for the Denver Post.
He graduated from Humboldt State University in 1977 with a degree in journalism. He received a Distinguished Alumni Award from HSU in 2009 and was the university's commencement speaker in 2010.
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