By Deirdre Walsh and Tom LoBianco
Washington — (CNN) House Democrats decided Tuesday to delay their leadership elections until after Thanksgiving — a move that will give reeling Democrats time to nurse their wounds, and could spell trouble for longtime leader Nancy Pelosi.
House Democrats told reporters following a closed-door meeting that their choice of leadership would be selected November 30.
A group of younger Democrats has been organizing behind the scenes to mount a challenge to Pelosi, who has held the post leading the Democrats for almost 14 years. Last Tuesday’s beating at the ballot box provided fuel to Pelosi’s critics inside the Democratic caucus, and they were expected to mount a challenge to her in Tuesday morning’s meeting at the Capitol.
Pelosi opened the meeting saying that she was open to delaying when Democrats pick their leaders, but that she had been hearing from members that they wanted their leadership selected before Thanksgiving and that the vote on timing should happen this Thursday.
Pelosi told the members inside the meeting Tuesday that she had planned to leave the decision until after Thanksgiving, but said they have to move forward now, according to a Democrat in the room.
“I don’t care. I’m agnostic. I was ready to go with after Thanksgiving because I didn’t want the new members to be spending all their time worrying about who they are going to vote for — for this, that or the other thing,” Pelosi said. Then, many of the members were saying: ‘Why are you delaying the elections?’ And the press was picking that up. ‘Why are you delaying the elections?’ I’m not delaying it.”
But there was long line of House Democrats who stood up inside the meeting looking to decide Tuesday whether they would push back their selection of leaders. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, pushed inside the meeting to hold a leadership vote December 1, but was shot down inside the meeting by Pelosi’s allies on the Democratic leadership team.
Wounded Democrats attempted to laugh off last week’s results at the opening of their meeting, watching a series of Saturday Night Live clips mocking Trump. But the meeting quickly moved to an effort by Pelosi’s challengers to delay picking their leader until after Thanksgiving — a move that would spell trouble for the former House speaker.
By Monday evening, Pelosi’s challengers had gathered 33 signatures to a letter seeking a thorough review of why Democrats lost so badly. The letter did not explicitly call for a challenge to Pelosi, but Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan has said he may challenge her.
“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,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, Monday night. “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.”
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