DeLauro: I Can Still Deliver

by Paul Bass

A record number of Rosa DeLauro’s colleagues are fleeing Congress. They say the system has grown too dysfunctional.

DeLauro, by contrast, is running hard for a 19th two-year term representing New Haven’s Third U.S. Congressional District. She said it’s still possible to strike compromises with people on the other side to advance meaningful legislation.

Even now. In the midst of what she considers a “Wag the Dog” war and the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

DeLauro is at the center of trying to move Congress out of impasses through old-fashioned negotiation as a member of the “Four Corners.” That’s the group of top-ranking House and Senate appropriations Democrats and Republicans who take the lead in crafting funding bills by working out terms everyone can agree on — an endangered art in the view of many of the record 63 federal lawmakers rushing for the exits rather than running for reeleciton.

“Leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species,” one of those Capitol emigrants, Sen. Thom Thillis, said in announcing his retirement.

DeLauro said the opposite in an interview Thursday on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.”

“Of course we can” reach compromises and legislate, she said.

DeLauro said she works well with fellow “Four Corners” members Republican Rep. Tom Cole, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, and Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

It’s true that they and their parties are logjammed on restoring funding for DHS. DeLauro has pushed for a bill to fund all parts of DHS (transportation security, disaster relief, cybersecurity, the Coast Guard) except for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. DeLauro and fellow Democrats are demanding changes to ICE before agreeing to fund that agency, such as requiring body cameras and judicial warrants while banning masks or arrests in churches or schools. Republicans reject the changes or separating ICE and border-policing funding from the rest of DHS.

That said, DeLauro repeatedly pointed out the group did succeed in crafting 11 out of 12 government funding bills that became law.

“We came together, we sat down, and we hammered out the bills, and we did very well,” DeLauro said. “On a bipartisan basis, we increased the money for the National Institutes of Health. The president called for $163 billion in cuts for domestic spending. The Appropriations Committee reversed all of that, Democrats and Republicans: 47 programs from labor, education, health and human services were [originally] eliminated, job training, Job Corps. We reversed that. Same with transportation and housing — 24 programs on a bipartisan basis.”

The flip side of striking bipartisan compromises: facing voters in the modern instant-viral era of political discourse and increasing calls to stand on principle on all votes rather than support compromises.

DeLauro received pushback with some constituents (in this meeting, for instance) for not calling for abolishing ICE on the argument that the more realistic goal would be to seek the reforms. She was asked in the “Dateline” interview whether it’s still possible for a legislator to run for reelection as a negotiator willing to support packages that include provisions unpopular in their home district.

“I do,” she said, citing the influence of her late mother and life mentor, former Alder Luisa DeLauro. “She taught me … Don’t take no for an answer. And never give up.” 

DeLauro faces a potential Democratic primary challenge from Andrew Rice. Another potential challenger, Damjan DeNoble, who has since dropped out, argued that DeLauro is too old at 83 to serve in Congress, that it’s time for generational change.

DeLauro argued on “Dateline” that ability to serve well in Congress isn’t about a person’s age.

“It’s about whether or not you’re meeting the needs of the people who put you in … Am I being responsive to the American people? Am I dealing today with the issue that is uppermost on their mind — the cost of living? They’re looking at grocery prices that go up, utilities, housing, all of those healthcare issues. Am I addressing those issues? And am I trying to look at public policy that helps to put money in their pocket?” (South Carolina U.S. Rep. James E. Clyburn, 85, made a similar argument Thursday in announcing his candidacy for an 18th term.)

Meanwhile, DeLauro and her Democratic colleagues are seeking to reassert Congress’s war powers in decisions about the war in Iran. 

DeLauro argued that the Trump administration has failed to offer a consistent rationale for the war, whether regime change or eliminating Iran’s nuclear threat or the possibility America could be attacked. She said the administration has offered no evidence for any of those shifting rationales that would convince her at this point to vote in support of additional funding for the war.

Why did Trump really start the war?

DeLauro said she doesn’t know. She said she’s open to the idea that the motivation could mirror that of the fictional Clintonesque president in the 1997 film Wag the Dog, who manufactures a reason to start a war to deflect attention from a sex scandal. 

“In my view, it is Wag the Dog. That’s what my view is,” DeLauro argued.

“I think Epstein is part of it. … [What] we are looking at is increasing unpopularity. … But there is no plan for the day after. There is no off ramp.”

Click on the below video to watch the full conversation on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” with U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro. Click here to subscribe or here to listen to other episodes of “Dateline New Haven.”