Ohio Democrats frustrated by slow progress in D.C.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Nina Turner, the former OH-11 congressional candidate who has built a national following as an outspoken progressive, has a warning for her party.

What You Need To Know

Democrats have controlled the White House and Congress for nearly a year, but a long list of campaign priorities remain unfinished

Ohio lawmakers and candidates are frustrated by the slow progress

Former OH-11 candidate Nina Turner predicted Democrats will "get crushed come 2022" if they don't act faster

A growing number of Ohio Democrats are calling for a Senate rule, called the filibuster, to be eliminated to pass voting rights and police reform legislation

"You know what's going to happen? Democrats are going to get crushed come 2022," Turner said in a Zoom interview last week.

"And you know why? Because they have the power at this moment. People are not going to say, ‘Oh, they only had a little bit of power.' No, you asked us in 2020 to give you the power, we gave it to you, and all we are getting is trinkets right now, and barely that."

Her frustration stems from a long Democratic to-do list, nearly 11 months after the party took back control of the White House and Congress.

The list includes passing voting rights and police reform legislation, raising the minimum wage and canceling student debt. They are issues Biden and the Democratic Party campaigned on in 2020, but have since become stalled in a closely-divided Congress.

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D, OH-3), who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, held a vigil outside the Capitol last week to pressure the Senate to consider voting rights legislation the House has passed.

"It is our intention to, one by one, ask for meetings with senators to ask them why won't you vote for a voting rights act?'" Beatty said in an interview after the event.

Then there's President Joe Biden's $1.7 trillion Build Back Better Act, which also remains stuck in the Senate.

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) is cautiously optimistic it will be passed before Christmas, but if it's not, there's no backup plan to keep the Child Tax Credit from lapsing.

"It's just another reason we need to pass Build Back Better in the next two weeks," Brown said in an interview last Thursday.

Most Ohio Democrats applaud Biden for winning passage of his infrastructure bill and a coronavirus relief package, but progressives, like Turner, want the president to support eliminating a Senate rule called the filibuster, which would allow legislation to pass with a simple majority instead of at least 60 votes.

Northeast Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan (D, OH-13), who's running for Senate, also supports getting rid of the filibuster, but in an interview last week, he acknowledged that in the meantime, Democratic leaders should wait to hold key votes until the numbers for passage are there.

"You got to get to yes," Ryan said. "I mean, just having a vote and it going down is not productive, I don't think."

This article was originally published by Spectrum News 1 on December 13, 2021.