Richie Neal wants to make a deal
By GINTAUTAS DUMCIUS, The Commonwealth Beacon
RICHARD NEAL, first elected to Congress in 1988, has made his bones by helping broker deals big and small, on and off Capitol Hill.
The Good Friday Agreement, which ended the violence in Northern Ireland and turned 25 this year, is chief among them. “I think the key to success in the end was that everybody had to give up something,” Neal recently recalled.
That ethos of compromise has been Neal’s guiding light over four decades in politics. In today’s hyper partisan climate, it’s often reviled as a sign of weakness. But that hasn’t changed Neal’s approach, as was clear from his appearance Monday at a breakfast gathering of the New England Council.
“I am open to a border negotiation. The president is open to a border negotiation,” Neal said to the business group, touching on the issue of security policy at the southern border. It was one of several contentious topics he hit on, ranging from infrastructure spending to foreign aid.
The former Springfield mayor rose through Democratic ranks in the House, and in 2019 became the chairman of one of Washington’s key deal-making panels: the House Ways and Means Committee.
He entered the House on the heels of Tip O’Neill’s reign as speaker, a time when Democrats controlled the House by a comfortable margin, and talk of President Reagan and O’Neill finding common ground, despite their sharp differences, still abounded.
“I would always like to take a kernel from this or that on the other side, to try to listen very carefully,” Neal said of his efforts to take the same approach. Often when crafting legislation, someone on the other side “will say something, and you’ll find the opening,” he said.
Nearly 20 elections later, control of the House has flipped, and Neal, who turns 75 in February, is in the minority. Republicans, whose caucus is filled with internal strife, have a razor-thin, three-seat majority in an environment that incentivizes conflict, which plays out on cable news and in strident campaign fundraising emails from the left and right.
Not exactly a climate conducive to brokering bipartisan deals.
But Neal remains an optimist on the lookout for them, including on immigration reform and billions in defense spending aimed at helping US allies and countering Russia and China.
Lawmakers are considering an aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, and House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he wants to include restrictive changes to border security, a notion that has drawn pushback from some Democrats. Neal insisted that there could be an opening for an agreement with congressional Democrats and the White House.
“The current chaos that we’re witnessing cannot be sustained,” he said, referring to the migrant crisis that has extended into Massachusetts.
Neal signed onto a December 6 letter from the state’s congressional delegation to President Biden’s homeland security chief demanding more federal aid, highlighting that the state is spending $45 million a month to house and feed migrant families that have been coming to the state.
Whether a deal tying border security to defense spending will be reached before Capitol Hill breaks for the holiday, is unclear. The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, was in Washington on Tuesday to press for funding as prospects for the aid package dimmed.
Neal told the business crowd gathered at the Boston Harbor Hotel that passing legislation will only get tougher as everyone’s focus turns to the 2024 election, and the incentives for conflict, and reelection, intensify. He thinks the Republicans’ House margin will get even narrower, predicting that a Democrat will win the special election for the New York seat formerly occupied by serial fabulist George Santos, who was expelled earlier this month.
As someone practically defined by the give and take of DC ways, Neal showed little patience for a small band of protesters who interrupted his remarks, suddenly appearing in front of the New England Council’s stage, chanting “Green New Deal” as they demanded that he stop taking donations from fossil fuel companies.
The Green New Deal, Neal said of the sweeping environmental measure cosponsored by Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, was just a resolution. He instead touted his support for offshore wind and legislation he helped craft that creates tax credits for the renewable energy sector, while insisting that he doesn’t take money from oil companies.
“I wrote real legislation,” Neal snapped at the protesters, pointing to the Inflation Reduction Act and the pandemic relief package. “You’re ill-informed.”
The half-dozen or so protesters kept shouting until police officers walked into the hotel’s Wharf Room. Their arrival elicited a cheer from the crowd of businesspeople, and prompted protesters to leave peacefully. Neal received a standing ovation.
Neal turned back to the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, aimed at fighting climate change and boosting manufacturing, and called it an “astounding piece” of legislation that Massachusetts is “well positioned to take advantage of.” The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill is sending Massachusetts $10 billion in funding, he added.
Even so, a recent MassINC Polling Group survey painted a picture of the challenging landscape that Neal and Democrats face. President Biden’s polling numbers are sagging even here in deep blue Massachusetts. Biden is barely above water, with 47 percent saying they approve of the job he’s doing, and 46 percent said they disapproved.
Neal said he remains “very optimistic” that the tangible things resulting from the big pieces of legislation, including construction projects, will show Democrats are delivering on the issues that matter most to people.
He puts a lot of stock in voters’ willingness to consider concrete achievements over partisan point-scoring. Whether that confidence is well-placed in the era of cable news food fights that he often eschews is less clear. But that’s how Neal, the practiced deal-maker, sees things.
“In politics, there’s always a battle between perception and reality,” Neal said. “I think as many of those legislative initiatives are baked into the conversation come late winter, early spring, people will start to see the benefits about the legislation that I pointed out today.”