NARRATOR: “Houston, we have a problem.”

NRCC Comment: “Buckle up and grab your popcorn because Democratic infighting is already reaching a breaking point and it’s only month two of Democrats’ House majority. Just wait until the intraparty primaries begin!” — NRCC Spokesman Michael McAdams

In case you missed it…

POLITICO: ‘This is not a day at the beach’: Pelosi tells moderate Dems to stop voting with GOP
Heather Caygle and John Bresnahan
February 28, 2019
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/28/nancy-pelosi-house-democrats-1195854

House Democrats held an emotional debate behind closed doors Thursday over how to stop losing embarrassing procedural battles with Republicans — a clash that exposed the divide between moderates and progressives.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) took a hard line at the caucus meeting, saying that being a member of Congress sometimes requires taking tough votes.

“This is not a day at the beach. This is the Congress of the United States,” Pelosi said, according to two sources.

Pelosi also warned that Democrats who voted with Republicans on the “motion to recommit” could become a lower priority for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, although her threat may be more bluster than reality, according to Democratic lawmakers and aides.

And Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the superstar New York freshman Democrat, suggested she would alert progressive activists when Democrats are voting with the GOP on these motions, said the sources.

In the end, Pelosi and other top Democrats didn’t agree to any rules change and will continue to study the issue. The motion to recommit offers the House minority one last shot at changing legislation before it receives a final floor vote. Typically, the motion is used to try to squeeze the majority party, but it rarely succeeds.

Democratic leaders have vowed to do a better job preparing for the Republican motions, but the controversy has divided Pelosi and her longtime lieutenants, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.).

Pelosi argues that Democrats must stick together on procedural votes, which is the traditional view of party leaders on both sides of the aisle. Hoyer and Clyburn, however, have suggested that moderate members can vote with Republicans if they think it will improve their political standing.

Republicans have already won two motions to recommit this Congress, including a Wednesday vote that angered Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives. In contrast, Republicans stuck together and never lost a single such motion when they controlled the House from 2011 to 2019.

The latest defeat came on Wednesday, as the House debated legislation requiring background checks on all gun sales — a position overwhelmingly favored by Democrats. When Republicans moved to amend the bill to require Immigration and Customs Enforcement be told of any undocumented immigrant who tries to buy a gun, 26 Democrats voted with the GOP. The language was added to the gun bill, spoiling an important Democratic legislative achievement.

An earlier GOP motion condemning anti-Semitism was successfully attached to a House resolution barring U.S. involvement in the Yemeni civil war. That maneuver, which was backed by every Democrat, later caused parliamentary problems in the Senate and upended Democratic attempts to challenge President Donald Trump’s foreign policy.

During the closed-door meeting on Thursday, Pelosi said Democrats who vote for the Republicans’ motions are putting pressure on other vulnerable colleagues who would prefer to stick with the party.

“We are either a team or weren’t not, and we have to make that decision,” she said.

Pelosi told reporters afterward that she thinks Democrats should simply vote against the GOP motions, saying to do so otherwise gives Republicans “leverage.” But Pelosi also didn’t endorse the idea of changing House rules and nixing the procedural vote altogether as some lawmakers support.

“I’m a big believer in respecting the whole House and the rights of the minority to have their say,” Pelosi said at her weekly press conference. “I think we should just vote against all motions to recommit. It’s a procedural vote, it’s a ‘gotcha’ on the part of the opposition.”

But other members stood up in the meeting and challenged this view, without calling out Pelosi specifically.

Freshman Rep. Xochitl Torres Small (D-N.M.), who voted for the GOP motion on Wednesday, grew visibly emotional when speaking and pointedly said courage looks different to different people, according to two sources in the room.

Inside the meeting, Ocasio-Cortez said she has “a text chain with 200 activists in her district” that she’s in constant contact with on issues facing Democrats.

Ocasio-Cortez said she even considered voting against the background checks bill because of the Republican language on ICE, perhaps the most-hated federal agency on the left.

Ocasio-Cortez went up to the gallery after the vote to tell activists she “had to choose between immigrants and gun violence. Not because of Republicans, but because of Democrats,” said a source in the room.

“I think it is an extension of Trump’s tactics into the House and we cannot legitimatize it and we cannot allow for it and we cannot support it,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters after the meeting.

Rep. Juan Vargas (D-Calif.) wants to get rid of the motion completely, telling a reporter “I think this motion to recommit is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I’ve had my mole for 57 years, it’s right there on my arm,” Vargas said, pointing to his elbow. “And it does no good either. It just sits there one day maybe becoming cancerous. … It’s the same thing with the MTR. There’s no good reason for it.”

Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said party leaders would continue to review the issue in the coming weeks.

A senior Democratic aide aligned with the caucus’ moderate wing said it was completely hypocritical for progressives to complain about the tough vote they had to take Wednesday.