Scoop: Jeffries' centrists press him to let them keep voting for GOP bills
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries speaks at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 6. Photo: Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A group of centrist House Democrats met privately with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and asked him to keep giving them room to vote for GOP messaging bills, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Democrats see an opportunity to win back the House majority in 2026, but the swing-district lawmakers who are key to that effort feel they need to be able to break away from their party at times to secure reelection.
State of play: Jeffries huddled for about 30 minutes Friday with the 10-member Blue Dog Coalition, a group of the most centrist Democrats in the House.
- The discussion around winning back the majority, according to one House Democrat who was present, centered on giving centrist and swing-district Democrats "flexibility to take certain votes."
- Jeffries is known to meet regularly with internal groups such as the Blue Dogs, the center-left New Democrat Coalition and the Progressive Caucus.
State of play: Democrats' losses in the 2024 election appear to have made them more sensitive to the downsides of voting against what are known as "messaging bills."
- Such legislation is put to a vote by the majority party with the express purpose of forcing vulnerable members of the opposing party to choose between taking an unpopular stance or defying their party.
- Several GOP messaging bills on Israel, immigration and transgender rights saw increased Democratic support between 2024 and last month.
- In each case, Democratic leadership noted that the relevant committee ranking member opposed the bill but did not formally whip against it.
What we're hearing: "What we were saying is — making sure that they understand that if we're going to get the majority, they've got to give Blue Dogs and New Dems a little flexibility," the lawmaker said.
- Said another member who was at the meeting: "What we discussed was the fact that the majority in Congress runs through the Blue Dogs."
- A third told Axios: "You've got to come here to vote your district, so ... we were just expressing our political orientation to the leader."
Zoom in: The lawmakers told Axios they feel Jeffries — known as a coalition builder who tends to lead with a light touch — has been receptive to their pleas.
- The first lawmaker pointed to a Friday vote in which 16 Democrats backed a GOP bill to stop the president from banning oil and natural gas fracking as an example of Jeffries taking them seriously.
- "In the past, it would have been only [two votes]," the Democrat said. "They said, 'Oh, not good,' but they didn't whip us ... the ranking member was against it, but there was no whip."
- The third lawmaker said there have been "leadership teams in the past that didn't see it that way," a pointed reference to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) often iron-fisted rule of the Democratic caucus.
Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional reporting.
