Meet the Democrats who could replace Pelosi as party leader in 202
The reconciliation bill is dead and the infrastructure bill is law, meaning the caucus failed to achieve its goals for the year. But it did show its leverage among House Democrats, and the dozens of Progressive Caucus members could be a natural constituency for Jayapal in a speakership run.
R Street Institute senior fellow for governance James Wallner, however, told Fox News that Jayapal might want to think twice before running for leadership. He said jobs like fundraising and traveling to represent the party nationally may detract from her progressive advocacy.
“Once you’re speaker, you have a different set of responsibilities,” he said. “Having a progressive speaker would be, at the margins, better for progressives. But the question that progressives… need to ask themselves is can they be more effective, more aggressive… not in leadership but in pressuring leadership to do things.”
He added: “If you want to be really effective, you can be effective from all kinds of different places…. You could be less effective in the speakership role than you would be as the leader of a very muscular and aggressive and creative, outside-the-box- thinking progressive faction in the House.”
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