Nancy Pelosi: “Reschedule the SOTU”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked President Donald Trump to forgo his Jan. 29 State of the Union (SOTU) speech, expressing doubts that the hobbled government can provide adequate security. Republicans saw her move as a ploy to deny Trump the stage.

Background 

The State of the Union Address is an annual message presented by the President of the United States to a joint session of the United States Congress at the beginning of each calendar year in office. The message typically includes a budget message and an economic report of the nation, and also allows the President to propose a legislative agenda (for which the cooperation of Congress is needed) and national priorities.

The Speaker of the House is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives. The office was established in 1789 by Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution. The Speaker is the political and parliamentary leader of the House of Representatives, and is simultaneously the House's presiding officer, de facto leader of the body's majority party, and the institution's administrative head.

A government shutdown occurs when Congress fails to pass, or the President fails to sign appropriations legislation, funding federal government operations and agencies. Since 1976, when the current budget and appropriations process was enacted, there have been twenty gaps in budget funding, eight of which have led to federal employees being furloughed.

The ongoing shutdown started on 22 December 2018 after the Democrats refused to include funds for President Trump’s border in the continuing resolution to pay for the operations of the Federal Government.

Analysis 

The partial government shutdown threw a prime Washington ritual into question, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked President Donald Trump to postpone his State of the Union speech. 

In a letter to Trump, Pelosi said that with both the Secret Service and the Homeland Security Department entangled in the shutdown, the president should speak to Congress another time or he should deliver the address in writing. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen denied anyone’s safety is compromised, saying both agencies “are fully prepared to support and secure the State of the Union.”

Inviting the president to give the speech is usually pro forma, and Pelosi issued the invitation in routine fashion, in consultation with the White House, several weeks ago. But with the shutdown in its fourth week, the White House and Democrats in a stalemate, and the impasse draining the finances of hundreds of thousands of federal employees, little routine is left in the capital.

Pelosi left unclear what would happen if Trump insisted on coming despite the welcome mat being pulled away. It takes a joint resolution of the House and Congress to extend the official invitation and set the stage.

To Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the matter was less about security than about Pelosi feeling she has the upper hand in the budget standoff. The White House hosted a bipartisan group of lawmakers, followed by a group of Republican senators, on the 26th day of the shutdown, with no sign of breaking through the impasse over Trump’s demands for $5.7 billion to build a wall along the Mexican border. Democrat leaders are refusing to bargain over a border wall they oppose, as long as the government remains partially closed.

Even as administration officials projected confidence in their course, Kevin Hassett, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said the shutdown is slowing growth more than predicted.

With the shutdown in its fourth week, that suggests the economy has lost nearly a half-percentage point of growth so far, though some of that occurred at the end of last year and some in the first quarter of this year. Hassett said the economy should get a boost when the government re-opens.

Assessment 

Our assessment is that an economic shift could rattle Trump as he has tied his political fortunes to the stock market and repeatedly stressed economic gains as evidence of his successful policies. We believe that Speaker Pelosi’s request to reschedule the State of the Union address is a major shift from an time-tested Washington tradition and we feel that President Trump may not agree to it.