House Democrats are upset, reports Politico:
[Pelosi's] staff, her members and a lot of the Democratic leaders are still genuinely angry about all the heavy lifting they did last year — on health care, jobs and cap and trade — while, in their eyes, the White House played favorites with the Senate.
At the beginning of Obama’s presidency, he agreed to make cuts from the stimulus package in order to attract a few Senate Republicans, even though it made the measure less attractive to many key House members. And the House feels snubbed by the White House on health care talks because Democrats in the lower chamber were basically ignored while the administration courted a few Senate Republicans. The House-passed cap-and-trade bill has been all but abandoned in the Senate, and House members feel the Senate and the White House have ignored the jobs bill the House passed in December.
Unfortunately, they seem not to understand who to be upset with. The White House has devoted more attention to the Senate's needs because the Senate has imposed a 60 vote supermajority requirement upon itself and the House hasn't. The administration agreed to make cuts to the stimulus package because that's what Senate Republicans demanded, or else they would filibuster the measure. The administration lavished attention on moderate Democrats and a handful of Senate Republicans because that's what needed to pass health care reform. The House could just let 40 some moderate members vote no. The Senate can't do that.
This displaced resentment seems to result from the House's failure to understand the basic structure of the American government, and where the corresponding legislative bottlenecks lie. Can't the administration find a couple political scientists to explain this stuff at a House retreat?