Democrats caught flat-footed by total control of Washington

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The Democratic takeover of the White House and Congress is complete. But the truth is that the party was caught flat-footed by it: Almost no one expected JON OSSOFF and RAPHAEL WARNOCK to both win in Georgia — let alone planned for how they’d run Washington if it happened.

The lack of preparation is now causing confusion among congressional Democrats about how they should exercise their newfound power in the critical early days of the administration.

Conventional wisdom is that presidents have a small window of opportunity to make their mark with a big legislative achievement or, best case, two. Timing is critical, as is sequencing. But beyond a desire to address the pandemic — unquestionably Biden’s first priority — Democrats seem to be all over the place on what their legislative game plan looks like.

Our Democratic sources say Biden’s two top targets will be a Covid package and a massive infrastructure bill paired with clean energy policies, a nod to climate advocates. But Democrats are also talking about criminal justice and policing reform as well as good governance proposals to clean up elections.

Before Biden was sworn in, aides had been hashing out plans to use the fast-track “reconciliation” process to try to jam it through on a party-line vote. But now Democrats are pressing pause because Biden is, as one person called it, “bipartisan-curious” — i.e. he wants to try to win over Republicans first, to the chagrin of many senior Democrats eager to move quickly. (Biden aides reached out to moderate GOP Sen. LISA MURKOWSKI of Alaska this week, and Democratic Sen. JOE MANCHIN of West Virginia says he hopes to talk to them over the weekend.)

The lack of clarity extends to immigration. Many Democrats privately concede that the massive immigration bill Biden introduced on Day One was mostly symbolic — a gesture to advocates that’s unlikely to come to fruition.

On top of all this, the Senate will soon have to conduct an impeachment trial of DONALD TRUMP (see our scoop on that below), and Schumer and MITCH MCCONNELL are still at loggerheads over a Senate power-sharing agreement that is sucking up time and could delay confirmations.

For now, the frustration is contained to a handful of top lawmakers and aides trying to come up with a path forward. But we shall see how long they can keep a lid on it