The Congressional Progressive Caucus has had a surprisingly productive and savvy post-election session. Co-chairs Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Mark Pocan of Wisconsin cut a deal with presumptive House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to increase the number of CPC members on five key committees, through which nearly all major domestic policy flows. Member Barbara Lee was given a new House leadership position, co-chairing the panel that doles out those committee assignments.

Progressives also convinced leadership to scrap a House rule, implemented by Republicans in 1994, requiring a super-majority vote for raising taxes on the majority of wage-earners, making priorities like Medicare for All or tuition-free college harder to finance. And they are fighting to establish a Select Committee on climate change that would develop “Green New Deal” legislation.

All of these steps are preparatory in nature. Progressive legislation won’t get President Trump’s signature, but eliminating hurdles to such legislation will matter in the future, if and when a more like-minded president takes over. Progressives are finally playing a long game, thinking strategically about how to maximize power once they have it.

But these advances did not come easy, nor are they ensured to stick. There’s also one major hurdle left to topple: the “pay as you go” rule, commonly known as “pay-go,” which demands that all new spending get offset with budget cuts or tax increases. Progressive critics argue that this creates an unlevel playing field, where Republicans blow giant holes in the tax code, as they did last year, while Democrats must pay fealty to the deficit. These critics are now mounting a fight to unshackle a future activist government.

Earlier this year, amid “internal divisions” in the party, Pelosi signaled her intention to put pay-go into the rules package. “Democrats are committed to pay-as-you-go,” her spokesman, Drew Hammill, said in June. Former Progressive Caucus chair Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) responded by calling pay-go “an absurd idea,” saying it’s “irresponsible to try to tie up Congress’s ability to respond to economic downturns or, in the current discussion, to slash programs.”