It’s not a secret that Democratic leaders have been under intensifying pressure from their base to stand up more aggressively and more assertively to the Trump administration’s many abuses. There’s reason to believe that message is getting through.

Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, for example, announced that he’s putting procedural holds on all State Department nominees. Around the same time, a wide variety of congressional Democrats didn’t just issue tweets or press releases about the White House’s campaign against the U.S. Agency for International Development, they showed up in person at USAID headquarters and delivered forceful remarks on camera soon after.

But I was especially interested in the shot across the bow from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Politico reported:

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries issued a key demand Monday as a March 14 government funding deadline approaches, saying President Donald Trump’s recent federal spending freeze ‘must be choked off’ as part of any bipartisan deal to keep the government open, ‘if not sooner.’

Stepping back, it’s worth appreciating that being in the House minority isn’t a lot of fun. While senators in the minority can sometimes still flex some muscle — on filibuster votes, for example — their brethren in the lower chamber have far fewer options.

They can’t filibuster. They can’t schedule hearings. They can’t issue subpoenas. They have effectively no control over what bills reach the floor or when.

So when Jeffries sent a letter to his colleagues, sketching out the party leadership’s 10-point plan to combat the White House’s agenda, the New York Democrat included some ideas that probably won’t amount to much. All of the ideas are well intentioned, but again, members of the House minority have very limited leverage.

That is, with one notable exception.

“I have made clear to House Republican leadership that any effort to steal taxpayer money from the American people, end Medicaid as we know it or defund programs important to everyday Americans, as contemplated by the illegal White House Office of Management and Budget order, must be choked off in the upcoming government funding bill, if not sooner,” Jeffries wrote.

The ultimatum, of course, was in reference to the White House’s recent budget memo, freezing federal grants and loans, which was rescinded in the face of widespread controversy and confusion.

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The reason this stood out is simple: In the last Congress, GOP leaders repeatedly turned to House Democrats to approve must-pass legislation after too many of their far-right members balked at governing. In fact, in literally every instance in which members had to vote on major fiscal legislation, it was the Democratic minority that saved the day.

This happened again shortly before Christmas when it came time to approve a stop-gap measure to prevent a shutdown. Republican leaders again turned to Democrats, who provided most of the votes, despite the fact that the GOP was in the majority.

That temporary spending bill reset the clock on the next funding deadline, which comes next month.

It’s against this backdrop that Jeffries sent a reminder to House Speaker Mike Johnson. We both know you’re going to need Democratic votes, the minority leader effectively said, so you should probably take our concerns seriously.

Jeffries specifically pointed to the administration’s funding freeze, but there’s no reason the House Democratic leader couldn’t use that same leverage in pursuit of related goals. Watch this space.