Rep. Donna F. Edwards had a clear message for the small group of constituents who gathered Saturday at an auto-glass store in Lanham: “Protecting Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid are incredibly important, more now than ever before.”
It was the same message she had delivered to multiple audiences over the preceding 48 hours.
Which federal programs would you choose to pay?
Last Friday night, Edwards sent a letter to President Obama signed by 69 fellow House Democrats urging him to keep the programs “off the bargaining table” in the ongoing debt-ceiling negotiations. The day before, on July 7, Edwards surprised colleagues at a closed-door meeting in the Capitol basement when she publicly chastised her Maryland neighbor, House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer, over entitlement reform.
The quick succession of events illustrated what Edwards has become just three years into her congressional tenure — an increasingly prominent voice among liberal House Democrats. Most recently, she has been pressing the White House not to compromise on core party principles for the sake of a debt deal.
“I hope you’ll pardon me occasionally if I nudge the president a little bit,” Edwards said Saturday morning at a bagel shop in Germantown, earning an appreciative laugh from constituents.
The chances of a “grand bargain” on the debt ceiling that might include entitlement cuts now appear remote. But in an interview Tuesday in her Capitol Hill office, Edwards explained why she felt the need to challenge Obama.
“The message coming from the White House [on entitlements] felt like a bit of a surprise,” she said, “and I thought it was really important to respond with a lot of clarity and with a unified voice for our party.”
Democrats haven’t always spoken with a “unified voice.” At last Thursday’s meeting of the House Democratic whip team — Edwards is a member — Hoyer seemed to contradict the message of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) by saying that entitlement reform needed to be on the bargaining table.
But Edwards pushed back, telling Hoyer that the leadership didn’t seem to be on the same page, individuals who attended the meeting said. Her tone startled those who attended, particularly given that she and Hoyer are home-state colleagues.
Some Democratic members and aides said privately it was not the first time Edwards has rubbed fellow lawmakers the wrong way — including those from Maryland — by being aggressive.
“I don’t regret what I said,” she said. “I meant what I said.”
Still, Edwards — who only regrets that the incident leaked to the media — apologized to Hoyer the next day before the full caucus, and he accepted. “I apologized very clearly . . . for the tone, but not for the substance. And I did repeat that,” said Edwards, whose 4th District covers much of Prince George’s County and portions of Montgomery County.
Hoyer has been a key ally to Edwards, both in the House and in Maryland. When Prince George’s then-state’s attorney Glenn F. Ivey considered challenging Edwards in the 2010 Democratic primary, Hoyer urged him to stay out of the contest. Ultimately, Ivey decided not to run.
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