House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has locked up the support of all four of Georgia’s returning Democratic congressmen but has yet to publicly win over the newest member of the state’s congressional delegation as she vies to reclaim the speakership.
U.S. Rep.-elect Lucy McBath, D-Marietta, hasn’t announced her plans for her first floor vote in January and a preliminary vote she’ll cast Wednesday during a closed-door House Democratic caucus meeting.
The gun control advocate’s vote for House speaker will help determine her standing in a caucus over which Pelosi, 78, has been quickly consolidating support.
McBath was noncommittal about Pelosi before securing the 6th District Democratic nomination, even as many were being pressured to back new party leadership. She said she wanted to wait to see the full slate of candidates for speaker before making a decision, a position she stuck with through the general election.
It’s not hard to see why McBath stayed so evasive.
The Pelosi-controlled Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee helped her build out her campaign infrastructure. Yet McBath's incumbent opponent, Roswell Republican Karen Handel, evoked the Californian's name constantly as a campaign trail slur.
Pelosi has ramped up a charm offensive in recent weeks that’s included swanky meals with incoming lawmakers and appeals from powerful allies, including Barack Obama, Al Gore and dozens of outside interest groups from the AFL-CIO to the League of Conservation Voters.
Already the picture is looking rosier for her than when lawmakers departed for the Thanksgiving recess. Pelosi flipped at least one of the 16 Democrats who signed onto a letter promising to oppose her on the floor, and Ohio Democrat Marcia Fudge, the only lawmaker who had publicly mulled a challenge to Pelosi, stood down last week after the Californian offered her a subcommittee gavel.
But Pelosi must still thread a careful needle in the weeks ahead. She’s expected to easily clear a secret-ballot vote this week among House Democrats – she only needs a majority of her soon-to-be 234 members to do that – but she can only spare 16 votes on the House floor in January.
Georgia’s four other House Democrats have joined Pelosi’s full-court public relations campaign to extend her 16-year tenure atop the caucus.
Atlanta Democrat John Lewis called Pelosi one of the chamber’s “most active, dedicated and committed members.”
“She works harder than anyone else and she gets out and raises money and …. she will have my support,” the civil rights icon said.
Sanford Bishop of Albany, Hank Johnson of Lithonia and David Scott of Atlanta are all in line to lead various House subcommittees in the new Congress, positions that could be put in jeopardy should someone else become speaker. All have announced their intent to back Pelosi.
“She’s the right person at the right time to do the right job,” Scott said in an interview last week. “Going towards 2020 we need the best forces in there for us to maintain the majority and it takes experience to do that.”
McBath is under immense pressure to back Pelosi, and the lawmaker-elect has created room for herself to ultimately vote for the Californian.
She was not among the dozens of Democrats, including several in Georgia, who went out of their way to disavow Pelosi on the campaign trail.
A McBath spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.
The founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, the gun control advocacy group for which McBath was once a spokeswoman, recently announced her support for Pelosi.
The GOP has signaled it’ll be ready to pounce should McBath endorse Pelosi’s bid for the speakership.
Within hours of Handel’s concession, the Republican National Committee fired off a statement with a clear warning to McBath.
“The 6th District will be watching her decision closely and holding her accountable,” said RNC spokesperson Ellie Hockenbury.
Read more: GOP employs familiar tactic in Georgia, tying opponents to Pelosi
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