On Tuesday morning a group of House Democrats will try to force a delay in their leadership elections scheduled for this Thursday, potentially setting up a divisive challenge to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
“There’s widespread interest from a broad coalition,” Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton told CNN on Monday night, off the House floor.
He has been circulating a letter urging Pelosi to give members more time to digest the election results before voting on the slate of leaders for the next Congress.
Moulton expected members to make a motion at a closed door meeting on Tuesday inside the House to postpone the vote, and said members would decide by secret ballot if the caucus should go forward with the election on Thursday or wait until a later date.
The Massachusetts Democrat, who just was re-elected to his second term, stressed he was not backing anyone to run against Pelosi.
“I’m just saying we need to have this conversation,” he said.
Arizona Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego told reporters Monday evening President-elect Donald Trump “is not a normal Republican president” and noted he just appointed a “white nationalist” adviser in Steve Bannon.
“For us to assume we should go along as normal as possible, as business as usual is wrong. This man just appointed a frickin’ white nationalist to be his right-hand adviser at the White House,” he said. “And we’re just going to assume that everything should be done normally as it has in the past? And I think that’s a very severe mistake.”
Gallego told reporters that 33 members had signed the letter, and he planned to make a pitch during the Tuesday morning session. He also made it clear he wasn’t getting behind any specific candidate to try to oppose Pelosi, but wanted a more thorough review of why Democrats lost so badly.
Ohio Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan has not ruled out mounting a campaign for the top post in the House, and some members indicate he has been gauging what kind of support he might get.
Pelosi maintains broad support inside the caucus, and on Friday a letter signed by over 40 female members urged her to run again for her current position. During her time as the top Democrat she has raised tens of millions of dollars for the party and many Democrats told CNN they still supported her.
Moulton said he spoke to Pelosi, but she told him she disagreed with any delay.
New York Democratic Rep. Steve Israel, who is a Pelosi ally, told CNN Democrats should have the vote and move on to combating the President-elect’s new policies.
“Getting hung up for another two, three or four weeks about who the leadership is and generating headlines about how we’re divided is counterproductive. We ought to be fighting Donald Trump and his bad ideas and not be fighting among ourselves right now,” Israel said.