The way the rules of the U.S. House of Representatives are written, members of the political party in the minority have few options to shape the legislative agenda, particularly in the polarized chamber that exists now. The Republican leaders of the House majority decide which bills reach the floor for a vote, when and for how long each is debated.
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley has tapped one of those options to force a vote on her bill to extend temporary protected status to 350,000 Haitians for three years. The co-chair of the House Haiti Caucus used the same maneuver that forced votes in the House, and later the Senate due to public outrage, to release federal files on convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
Pressley succeeded in collecting the signatures of 218 members, a simple majority in the House, on what is technically known as a “discharge petition” to release her bill from the committee where it has been buried. Signing on were every Democrat and four Republicans who broke party ranks. Two represent swing districts in suburban Philadelphia and the Hudson Valley of New York, one from Nebraska is retiring and the fourth, María Elvira Salazar, is a Cuban-American whose Miami-based district lies near the city’s Little Haiti neighborhood.
It is rare for a discharge petition to succeed though they have done so more often in recent years, with the House closely divided between the two parties. Since 1985, only 15 petitions, including Pressley’s, have hit the 218 mark.
When it returns in two weeks from a recess, the House will vote on her proposed extension of protected status for Haitians. The presumption is all endorsers with vote for the bill, and it will be approved, though it will be subject to amendment.
The success of the petition and the pending vote should give heart to affected Haitians who have been living in limbo in the United States since the Trump administration last year moved to terminate their protective status, leading to the threats to revoke their work permits and deport them to a country bedeviled by violence and political instability. That includes those who live in the Boston area, the third-largest concentration of Haitians in this country.
Federal courts have so far blocked the administration’s attempt to terminate protection for the 350,000 Haitians across the country. The Supreme Court will hear arguments on the case later this month, with a ruling not likely before late June or early July.
In the meantime, voters will be able to tune in on C-Span and see and hear Republican opponents to the extension argue with a straight face that conditions in Haiti have somehow improved, as Kristi Noem, then secretary of Homeland Security, claimed last year. No one with any knowledge of the country’s volatile situation believes it, nor should voters.
Much credit goes to Pressley for forcing that public debate and House vote. Many progressive activists around the country have complained congressional Democrats aren’t doing enough to fight back against President Donald Trump’s retro initiatives, without the critics having the slightest understanding of the structural limits on the minority’s power in Congress, particularly in the House.
What those progressives appear to mean by doing something is saying something. Democrats do that aplenty, but their protests get only token play in the news media, because journalists—and the House members themselves—know their statements won’t affect the outcome. The majority Republicans and administration officials will simply ignore what minority Democrats have to say, in most instances. When Democrats controlled both branches, they dismissed Republican dissent the same way.
Progressives are probably pleased with Pressley, a prolific producer of forceful protests against Trump policies that her staff disseminate widely, often with video. But the generic term for her job and all members of Congress is not statement maker. It is lawmaker.
Aside from her statements, Pressley has provided a model for what House Democrats can do, and that is to persuade enough dissident Republicans to go along with Democratic legislation. Protests only go so far.
Pressley’s legislation to protect 350,000 Haitians in this country is far from becoming law, even assuming it is approved in the House. The Republican leadership in the Senate doesn’t even have to schedule a vote, and Trump can be expected to veto it. Her bill remains a longshot. But it at least has a shot, which is better than having none at all.
This where those complaining progressives can play a useful role, in persuading more Republicans in House to do the right thing, so Pressley’s bill is approved with more than a bare majority—as happened with the Epstein legislation, once its approval became inevitable and the public outcry became so loud.
Progressive activists and Democratic senators also can do the same with Republican senators to try to cobble a majority behind the bill in that chamber. The Republicans who represent Florida are a prime target, given that state’s large Haitian population. Before he joined the administration as secretary of state, Marco Rubio supported extending the Haitians’ status as a senator from Florida.
Sending those Haitians back home to live in that volatile situation would represent a level of cruelty that would not reflect the best of America. The very proposition reeks of racism.
If the Trump administration wants them to return, it should help make conditions in Haiti more stable and peaceful. For starters, it could contribute funding for security forces from other countries, once led by Kenya and now by Chad, working to suppress violent gangs that have challenged the authority of the interim government.
That government was not elected because, as things have stood for the past five years, Haiti is too violent and unstable to hold an election. How can it be a secure place for the 350,000 Haitian migrants to return? Even the conservative majority on this Supreme Court ought acknowledge that reality.
Ronald Mitchell
Editor and Publisher, Bay State Banner
