Speaker turns to centrists

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) leadership team has charged a band of mostly centrist members with recommending a House Iraq strategy, pushing for the lower chamber to be the source of bipartisan action on the war.

The decision came shortly after the Senate last week nixed, for the second time, a proposal that would have required more rest time for troops. The measure, by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), had been seen as a bipartisan compromise to change the course of the war in a limited way. But it failed to muster the 60 votes needed for passage.

{mosads}At a meeting a few hours later, Pelosi’s lieutenant for Iraq policy, Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) asked a group of lawmakers to come up with ideas for what legislation the House should take up next. They are to report back Tuesday.

Key members of the ad hoc group include Reps. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) and John Tanner (D-Tenn.), the authors of a centrist Iraq withdrawal proposal that has drawn intense criticism from more liberal members and become a symbol of the division within the Democratic Caucus.

“We have to change tactics now,” said Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), a member of the group who was once targeted by liberals but who now takes a hard line against the war. “We’re supporting leadership by bringing products forward.”

The ad hoc group does include members of the Out of Iraq caucus, such as Abercrombie and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). It does not, however, include the three vocal leaders of that caucus: California Democratic Reps. Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters and Lynn Woolsey. Abercrombie and Schakowsky voted for the Iraq supplemental spending bill that the California troika opposed.

Other members of the ad hoc group include Reps. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), David Price (D-N.C.) and Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.).

Under Larson’s plan, the group is to consider what sort of policy bills the House can pass to guide the upcoming fight on the pending defense appropriations bill and the upcoming Iraq war supplemental bill, which is expected in October or November.

Although the centrists are not wedded to bringing up bills with “hard” withdrawal dates, they are not in lockstep on what kind of bills to suggest. Some want to bring up bills that centrist Republicans can vote for, or at least feel politically compelled to support.

Larson has said there are at least 42 Iraq bills the leadership can choose from. Bills that the group is looking at in particular include one by Rep. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) that would implement the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group; the “Abercrombie-Tanner” bill, which would require Bush to report regularly on the status of the military’s withdrawal planning; Tauscher’s bill to rescind the 2002 authorization of use of force; and a bill by Price stating that Bush’s authorization to use troops in Iraq expires at the end of the year.

They are also looking at preliminary measures intended to show that Democrats will fix some of the day-to-day problems on the ground in Iraq. Price has a bill that would make U.S. contractors like Blackwater USA subject to U.S. criminal law. Blackwater has come under intense criticism after a recent confrontation in Iraq that left 11 Iraqi civilians dead.

The other is Abercrombie’s “war profiteering” bill, which clarifies that any corruption surrounding U.S. funding in Iraq could be prosecuted in U.S. courts, even if it is allocated to something like the Coalition Provisional Authority.

The search for a new strategy comes after two previous policy offensives did not live up to their billing. In July, Pelosi promised a regular stream of votes on Iraq policy. The House passed legislation by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) that called for withdrawal by April 2008, but it failed to attract new Republican defectors. For its part, the Senate held an all-night session that yielded photos of cots, but no changes on Iraq.

Activists then mounted the “Iraq summer,” intended to push wavering Republicans into breaking with Bush in September after Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus issued his report on the surge. But the White House ran a campaign depicting the surge as a military success, which succeeded in keeping additional Republicans from switching sides.

Larson’s ad hoc process began informally in the summer, when most members of the group backed the so-called “Abercrombie-Tanner” bill. But that measure has revealed sharp divisions in the Democratic Caucus.

Lee, Waters and Woolsey persuaded Pelosi not to bring the bill to the floor in July, calling it “backsliding.” Since then, Woolsey has advocated seeking primary opponents for centrist Democrats deemed insufficiently anti-war. Abercrombie lashed back at her, saying Woolsey and other party liberals should not be given “veto power” over what goes to the floor.

But last week, 48 members signed a letter to Pelosi urging a floor vote on the bill. Most were members of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition.
 
Pelosi last week put off questions about her next steps and her strategy on Iraq, saying, “We’ll be making some announcements about that when we’re ready to do so.”