CNN Politics does a piece on how the New York Senator is making sure he keeps in touch with his left political flank while maintaining contact with others….
He is NOT anything like now Minority Leader Mitch McConnell…
“He has one of the toughest jobs in Washington right now. He’s the majority leader of a caucus that has zero margin for error. And I don’t mean 1%, I mean zero,” Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, told CNN this week. “I think, thus far, he’s handling it well. He’s handling it by persuasion not by coercion. He’s talking to people, listening and trying to accommodate their needs, but it’s a very tough position.”
Another Senate aide, to a progressive Democrat, offered a similar description of Schumer’s style: friendly, verbose, sympathetic, but ultimately unyielding.
“He’s got a really calming disposition and pretty skilled in terms of moderating a lot of these member calls,” the aide said. “He’s careful to validate concerns, to gently push back, to make personal inquiries into so-and-so member about a particular issue. I think he shows a kind of skill, the hand-holding and the process, and I think he has a pretty good, kind of granular grasp of some of the policy considerations, too.”
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, put it this way: “Chuck’s style is unique. He is frenetically connected to his caucus members.”
“In many ways, Schumer is made for this moment,” Murphy said. “Managing an effective one-seat majority in the Senate is really hard and it requires you to know what every single member of your caucus is thinking on an hour-to-hour basis, because one disgruntled member can potentially upset your agenda.”
Other Senate aides, past and present, told CNN they were not surprised by Schumer’s tack with the caucus or his determination to cheer lead and cajole for Biden’s agenda. He is, at 70-years-old, after a combined four decades in the House and Senate, as relentless as ever. This is his dream job, old friends and allies said, the work of a lifetime…..
image…AP News
Schumer is NOT gonna have a problem with AOC….
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez teamed up in New York Monday to introduce $2 billion in special FEMA funds for families who have not been able to afford proper funerals for their loved ones who passed away as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
The New York Democrats announced that families can get reimbursed up to $7,000 for funeral expenses, with $260 million of those funds to be directly allocated to New Yorkers. Eligibility for the funds will be retroactive through the beginning of the pandemic, January 20, 2020, to December 31, 2020, and Schumer says he and Ocasio-Cortez are working to keep the program in place for the rest of the pandemic….
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