When House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries asked Colorado Rep. Joe Neguse to help lead the party’s resistance to President Donald Trump’s executive actions, the Boulder congressman felt like there was only one possible answer.
“Generally, I’m not in the business of saying no when asked to take on an important task like defending our republic,” he told CPR News earlier this week.
That’s how Neguse came to chair House Democrats’ Rapid Response Task Force and Litigation Working Group. The long title captures what Neguse describes as an all-hands-on-deck approach “to really coalesce around legal and legislative strategies for the caucus to take to respond to what’s happening” with the new administration.
This is not the first time Neguse has been tapped by leadership to take on a high-profile assignment. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked Neguse to be part of the team to lead the floor debate around the presidential certification on January 6, 2021. And when Congress moved to impeach Trump for the Capitol riot that followed, he was also an impeachment manager for that. In that trial, seven GOP senators voted to convict, well short of the 17 needed.
Neguse has also seen his stock rise in leadership during his tenure in the House, from a co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee to currently serving as Assistant Minority Leader under Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
“I'm terribly worried about the way in which, just in a span of three and a half months, the deterioration in the rule of law has occurred,” he said. “And I'm very concerned that if we don't find ways to push back and signal that this isn't okay, that it's not business as usual, that these actions have consequences, that it's going to metastasize and become incredibly difficult for us to function as the constitutional republic that we have been for two and a half centuries.”
For his part, President Trump has taken an extremely expansive view of presidential power and argued repeatedly that dramatic actions are necessary to put the United States on the path to a stronger future.
The task force is made up of 40 House Democrats, including co-chairs Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Gerry Connolly of Virginia. Fellow Coloradan Rep. Diana DeGette is also a member. It’s focused on three areas of pushback: legal, legislative and oversight.
On the legal front, the caucus has submitted several amicus briefs in cases challenging Trump’s actions. It may not sound like much, but Neguse said doing that at the trial court level is unprecedented for House Democrats. And, he said, they’ve had some success already.
In a lawsuit to overturn the president’s shuttering of the congressionally-approved Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Neguse points out the court, “cited the same legal arguments we made in our motion in support of the preliminary injunction in their decision.”
“It's an example of a way in which I think House Democrats can be involved in pushing back against unconstitutional actions outside of the conventional way in which we as legislators typically respond.”
Much of the legal push is happening outside of Congress, though, most notably by state attorneys general. Colorado has signed on to 12 multistate lawsuits against the Trump administration.
The other two prongs of the task force’s mandate — legislation and oversight — are harder to navigate when Democrats are in the minority. It’s the majority party that decides which bills come to the floor and it’s the majority party that decides oversight hearing topics. Republicans so far have used that power primarily to reinforce Trump’s agenda or criticize policies of the Biden agenda.
Still, Neguse said Democrats have been forward about introducing bills to reverse some of what Trump is trying to do, whether it be protecting special education as the Trump Administration tries to dismantle the Department of Education or a bill to rehire laid-off federal employees. And there have been calls for investigations and demands for information, which Neguse said is part of Congress’s oversight authority.
Democrats have also been holding what are called shadow hearings: minority-run unofficial hearings on policy issues like cuts to Medicaid or veteran benefits.
“Just given the peril that I believe our republic faces right now, it's going to require a level of creativity on the part of legislators that perhaps we have not necessarily had to apply in the past,” he said.
But will these actions be enough to satisfy a base, who at town hall after town hall in Colorado have loudly asked their Democratic representatives why more is not being done?
Neguse thinks so. “The key question is, are we using every tool in our toolbox to respond? That fundamentally is what I'm focused on. My constituents want to see me pushing back against anything that's unconstitutional or unlawful or that would harm Coloradans writ large.”
It is an effort, though, that Neguse acknowledges will require time.
“There's no panacea, and this is going to be a long sort of road ahead of trying to navigate a way forward that is responsive to the moment,” he said.
