Last Thursday saw the first day of the first session of the 116th Congress with Democrats taking control of the House, leaving the Senate in the control of Republicans.
This also means that House Committees of Agriculture and Natural Resources will be headed by Democrats for the next two years. The House Agriculture Committee is now chaired by Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN-07) and the Natural Resources Committee is now chaired by Rep. Raъl Grijalva (D-AZ-03).
Historically, Peterson has been relatively sensitive to the needs of farmers and ranchers, while extreme environmentalist groups regularly have Grijalva’s ear.
As its first order of business, the Democrat-led branch of the split Congress reelected Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12) as the Speaker of the House with a close vote of 220 to 210. Following her election, she acknowledged the likely difficulty that will face Congress going forward.
“We have no illusions that our work will be easy, that all of us in this chamber will always agree. But let each of us pledge that when we disagree, we will respect each other, and we will respect the truth.”
On Wednesday, a day before the first session of the 116th Congress, President Donald Trump spoke to new congressional leaders about homeland security and took a similar conciliatory tone, saying: “Some people think it’ll be controversial and tough, and it probably will, but we’re going to get a lot done. I think we can work with the Democrats, actually, and get quite a bit done.”
Shutdown showdown
Just a couple days earlier, and in other venues, however, both took considerably less congenial tones. The point of contention for both was the funding of the wall along the southern border than has become the lynchpin issue to the government shutdown.
Trump tweeted frequently throughout New Year’s Eve, starting early in the morning with praises of the wall. By mid-morning, he issued an invitation to Democrats to “come back from vacation now and give us the votes necessary for Border Security, including the Wall.”
Pelosi, together with Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), shot back with implications of hypocrisy in a joint statement of actions to end what they called “the Trump Shutdown.”
“The president is using the government shutdown to try to force an expensive and ineffective wall upon the American people, but Democrats have offered two bills which separate the arguments over the wall from the government shutdown,” they wrote.
The statement described two proposed bills—unnamed, unidentified, and not available as of press time—that would reportedly restart the government. One would supposedly fund all government services save the Department of Homeland Security at prior levels, and the other would fund the Department of Homeland Security as prior levels—without the demanded funding for the wall—through Feb. 8.
A few hours after the release of the joint statement, Trump tweeted, saying, “The Democrats will probably submit a Bill, being cute as always, which gives everything away but gives NOTHING to Border Security, namely the Wall.” — WLJ
