Biden further slims Democratic House majority with USDA pick, despite worries from some top Democrats

With House Democrats down to their slimmest majority in the chamber since World War II, a former chief of staff to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is warning President-elect Joe Biden and his team to stop grabbing congressional Democrats for his incoming administration.

Danny Weiss, who served as Pelosi’s chief of staff from 2017-2019, told Fox News that the president-elect “should not nominate one more person from the House to the administration.”

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Weiss emphasized that “it’s just too narrow a majority” and urged that Biden’s team “will have to wait until the majority is bigger.”

Pelosi’s former chief of staff spoke after news that Biden would nominate Rep. Marcia Fudge of Ohio to serve as secretary of housing and urban development. Last month, the former vice president picked Rep. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, a former Congressional Black Caucus chairman who was a top surrogate and co-chair of Biden’s presidential campaign, as his choice to lead the White House Office of Public Engagement.

The Democrats’ House majority, which they won in the 2018 midterms, was unexpectedly reduced in last month’s elections. They will likely hold a 222-213 majority when the 117th Congress kicks off early next month. But it will likely shrink to a 220-213 majority when Richmond departs for the Biden administration and if Fudge is confirmed by the Senate.

Both Richmond and Fudge’s congressional districts – in the New Orleans and Baton Rouge area, and Cleveland – are deep blue, but the seats will remain vacant until special elections are held.

“Certainly I'm in a safe district,” Fudge told reporters Tuesday. “But I just have to hope that we can hold together long enough to make sure that something like that would happen if I should leave."

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The razor thin majority means that for Pelosi and her team whipping votes, just four defections from fellow Democrats could sink bills that the leadership brings to the floor.

“I'm certainly concerned by the slimming of the majority,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland told reporters Wednesday. The number two Democrat in the chamber highlighted that “I have indicated to the administration very early on that I wanted them to be very careful in terms of the members that they appointed from the Congress given the closeness of our majority.”

House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina told reporters that “there will be significant changes” when it comes to what kind of bills leadership will bring to the floor due to the razor-thin majority going forward.

But he said “absolutely not” when asked if progressive policy items would be watered down due to the fragile majority.

Pelosi, at least publicly, appears to be downplaying her shrinking majority. Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said that reports that the speaker had warned Biden’s team to stop pilfering anymore House Democrats were false.

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Fox News' Jason Donner, Tyler Olson and Talia Kaplan contributed to this report.