Big House remodeling underway for Clay, Wagner and their colleagues

Dec. 09--WASHINGTON -- When Democrats take control in January, the tables will drastically turn in the U.S. House of Representatives. New opportunities and challenges for two St. Louis-area representatives -- one a Democrat, one a Republican -- illustrate just how deep those changes will be.

Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, is preparing to cosponsor legislation on issues that Democrats campaigned and won on: measures to strengthen the Affordable Care Act, renew the Voting Rights Act, bolster the power of the government's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and ban assault weapons and toughen other federal gun restrictions. He also will get behind Democratic plans to allow anyone to buy into Medicare as a public option of Obamacare.

But he's also warned other Democrats from putting newly elected suburban colleagues in electoral peril by straying too far left. He's reached out to the new Democratic media star -- the democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of Brooklyn -- with a post-election olive branch after she campaigned for Clay's primary opponent, Cori Bush, in July.

And although he thinks that the Democratic House could eventually be confronted with the impeachment of President Donald Trump, depending on the results of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, Clay says he is cautioning fellow Democrats not to fixate on going after Trump early in 2019.

Next door, Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Ballwin, is preparing for first-time life in the minority. She says she thinks there are issues she can work with Democrats on, like infrastructure and immigration reform, but says she will devote a lot of time resurrecting a Republican suburban caucus.

She will also renew efforts to try to recruit Republican women to run for office after the GOP suffered sharp losses on Nov. 6, dropping from 23 House Republican women currently to 13 in the next Congress.

Meanwhile, the number of Democratic women in the House will increase from 64 to 89.

"It is absolutely devastating," Wagner said of her party's loss of women House members and its poor showing among female voters.

House Democrats will face left-wing proposals on things like Medicare for all and free collegiate education that critics have called budget-busting and pie-in-the-sky. A Republican-controlled Senate will be a powerful check on any legislation House Democrats pass.

Being in the majority again, Clay said in a wide-ranging interview, "gives us the ability to control the flow of critical legislation to address the progressive priorities that matter to working families in St. Louis and across the country.

"And it gives us the power to actually pass legislation that matters to real people now. What that means when it goes to the Senate, I am not sure."

Will House Democrats craft legislation aimed at attracting some Republicans, or will they pass legislation Republicans won't support and then take the lack of concrete results to the voters in 2020, and attack Republicans as obstructionists?

"I think you will get a mixture of both just because of the shape of our new members coming in," Clay said. "And here is what we need to understand about the new members: What gave us the majority in the House were those members who turned those red seats blue. Those were Trump districts and Republican-held districts that we better be sure we hold onto in two years, or else our majority will be short-lived."

That reality, in part, was the genesis of his olive branch to Cortez-Ocasio, Clay said. He said his wife, Pat, urged him to reach out.

Clay said he and Cortez-Ocasio talked about her possible committee assignments, and that he advised her that coming in and immediately making changes on issues she ran on will run up against the reality that Democrats who won in suburban districts may not share her economic and social agenda.

"She acknowledged that," Clay said.

The 10-term congressman said he's also talked to Republican colleagues who are adjusting to a new reality that they will need his help and that of the only other Democrat in the Missouri delegation, Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City, to get legislation on the House agenda.

"They are trying to figure out their way forward," Clay said of Missouri delegation Republicans. "And to an extent they have come to the realization that now they have to rely on Cleaver and Lacy, because we are in the majority, to actually deliver for Missouri."

Added Clay: "I do predict that (House Republicans) will probably want to distance themselves from the president sometime over the next two years, especially those in these competitive districts."

Wagner didn't entirely disagree with that point.

She said that while many of Trump's economic policies have helped her constituents and were among the reasons she survived a narrow re-election against Democrat Cort VanOstran, some members of her caucus were angered by Trump's goading of Republicans who lost in suburban districts, and whom Trump mocked for losing because they hadn't sufficiently embraced him.

"I have always said there are many of the president's policies that my constituents in the 2nd District benefit from, appreciate, and I am supportive of that agenda," she said. "But I also speak out when I disagree. What I hope is that members of our conference will find their own voices, their own independent voices. We want to be as supportive of this president's agenda and this administration as possible. But you also have to know the people you represent, know how to reach across party lines, and how to get things done."

Wagner had initially considered vying to chair the National Republican Congressional Committee, but she never allowed her name to be put into consideration after talking with the new Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

She backed out, she said, when McCarthy told her that he would be essentially running the NRCC, which recruits Republican House candidates and raises money to support them.

"I believe that we all have to work together as a team if we are going to accomplish anything," Wagner said. "But I am nobody's proxy or rubber stamp -- let's just put it that way."

So the NRCC position went to Minnesota Republican Tom Emmer.

Wagner, who has raised money for the NRCC, will rejoin House Republican leadership as a senior whip to her close ally, Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La.

Wagner also said she will devote a lot of time to the suburban caucus.

"If we are going to be a majority party again we have got to have a party that looks more like America, that looks not just like our rural areas that are so wonderful across our country, but also that looks more like urban and suburban (America)," she said. "So I am going to be really pushing that suburban agenda and reformulating the suburban caucus."

So she says she will try to steer Republicans toward legislation dealing with career and technical education, paid parental leave, flex hours for workers and support for first responders.

She said that many members of her caucus personally told her they wanted her running the NRCC because, in part, she survived in a tough suburban district while many of her suburban colleagues, including women she recruited, were defeated.

Does the Republican congressional leadership and rank-and-file generally get how badly her party did among suburban voters, particularly women voters?

"They should get it," Wagner responded. "We will not be a majority party unless we are reflective of America and welcoming and open and supportive of women, and people of color, also.

"We have got to have a (Republican House) conference that is more reflective of our country; I get that," she continued. "There are some in our party that do, there are some in our conference that do not. I know this: I know our leadership is committed to taking back the majority."

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