Tag: GOP

GOP senator: Only way to improve Biden’s budget ‘is with a shredder’

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Biden’s budget, which includes tax hikes on wealthy Americans and corporations, record military funding and a plan to cut the deficit by $3 trillion over the course of a decade, is seen of having little chance of passing in Congress.
House Republicans have called for cuts to spending in return for lifting the debt ceiling later this year; the House Freedom Caucus offered a 10-point plan last week. In addition, Florida Sen. Rick Scott has suggested sunsetting Social Security and Medicare programs as a way to do so, a topic that became particularly contentious after Biden criticized the plan during his State of the Union speech earlier this year.
On Sunday, Kennedy said there should be conversations about making changes to these programs, though he was quick to say people should receive the Medicare and Social Security benefits they’ve paid for. But he echoed recent comments by Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley suggesting the possibility of raising the eligibility age for Social Security.
“Of course we ought to talk about it,” Kennedy told host Shannon Bream.
“The life expectancy of the average American right now is about 77 years old. For people who are in their 20s, their life expectancy will probably be 85 to 90. Does it really make sense to allow someone who is in their 20s today to retire at 62? Those are the kind of things that we should talk about.”
“There are a lot of things we could talk about,” Kennedy added, “but President Biden has taken that issue totally off the table.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 12, 2023
Manchin keeps ’em guessing, from Senate Dems to the House GOP

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Manchin says he’s not deciding on anything until the end of the year and is also pointedly refusing to rule out a presidential run on a third-party ticket. That gives him roughly nine more months to keep Washington guessing. In the meantime, he’ll keep exerting his political leverage, at least until he runs and Republicans start to limit his opportunities or a retirement announcement saps his Senate sway.
And the West Virginian is well aware of that limited window to maximize his current role as the GOP’s best bipartisan dealmaking partner and the Senate Energy Committee chair. This week alone, he announced opposition to Biden’s proposed IRS commissioner, tanked the nomination of an FCC commissioner and has “serious concerns’’ about Interior nominee Laura Daniel-Davis.
“If you can’t do the job the last two years because you’re in cycle, that tells you what’s wrong with this place. That’s why I haven’t made any commitment or a decision,” Manchin said in an interview this week.
It seems not a day goes by without Manchin tweaking the Biden administration over something. He thrashed the president’s team Wednesday for “putting their radical climate agenda ahead of our nation’s energy security” then on Thursday said White House advisor John Podesta was “irresponsible” in comments about Chinese energy production.
In his typical style, Manchin says none of those moves have anything to do with his reelection decision.
“I’m just trying to do the right thing. I’m just trying to get things implemented. The country desperately needs energy security,” Manchin said. “And if you can’t implement a bill that basically is all about national security … it’s bullshit.”
There’s also a critical new ingredient to his legislative success in the newly empowered House GOP. Manchin spent the first two years of Biden’s presidency cutting deals with more liberal Democrats, only to get kneecapped by Senate Republicans on his final push for an energy permitting deal.
Yet for the moment, the House Republican majority is staying open to collaboration with Manchin on the topic, regardless of his political future — as long as any cross-Capitol compromise delivers a win for them, too.

“There’s a lot of motivation all around for us to do something on permitting reform,” said Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah), who is so devoted to an energy deal that he turned down a spot on a more sought-after House committee to work on it.
Senate Democrats are similarly playing it cool when it comes to the parlor game of what Manchin might be thinking about 2024. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who chairs the party’s campaign arm, said he’d had conversations with Manchin about running again but is taking a light touch.
“He has time. It’s not like we have a lot of Democrats wanting to run in West Virginia. And if he decides to run, I am confident he will win,” Peters said.
Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.) is already running for the seat, but Republicans are also looking to land West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice in their primary. They see the Democrat-turned-Republican as the strongest possible recruit to force Manchin into retirement.
“It would certainly make me think twice, if I was in his shoes,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
Amid the political intrigue, House Republicans are downright buoyant about their chances of reaching a Manchin-blessed deal on energy permitting that would help speed the way for construction of major fossil-fuel and other projects. It helps that the genial West Virginian has personally spoken with nearly every major House player on the issue, from Speaker Kevin McCarthy to GOP panel chairs to the Democrats who are quietly supportive of his push.
Several House Republicans who’ve spoken with Manchin said they’ve given little thought to what he — the pivotal vote on some of Biden’s biggest wins — will choose to do next year. The same goes for whether a bipartisan permitting agreement could help him achieve it.
Natural Resources Committee Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) spoke to Manchin this week, and Westerman said each is committed to getting a result. Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) brushed aside potential GOP concerns that a deal could help lift Manchin to reelection: “My goal is to get a substantial permitting bill on the president’s desk.”
Rep. Carol Miller (R-W.Va.), whose GOP colleague Mooney is running for that Senate seat next year, said of Manchin: “I would work with anyone on permitting.”
Senate Republicans are more committed to defeating Manchin because West Virginia could easily determine who holds the Senate majority next year. They blocked attempts at attaching permitting legislation to year-end spending deals last year, in part out of retribution for Manchin’s dealmaking with Biden on Democrats’ massive party-line tax, health care and climate bill.
Now they’re questioning whether the rest of Manchin’s party would really follow him on a sweeping energy permitting deal with the House GOP.
“I do believe I can make a deal with Manchin. I’m not sure how many other Democrats would come on board,” said Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, his Republican counterpart on the Energy Committee.
Manchin said Democrats would “be hypocritical” to shun work on an energy bill just because it’s led by the GOP House. He called his work last year a “roadmap” for Republicans to follow; 40 Senate Democratic caucus members supported his bill last year.
And he’s putting out feelers of his own. As Republicans steer their party-line energy package to the floor this month, Manchin has asked some of his House Democratic colleagues about the GOP’s plans.
“He said, ‘Let me know what the Republicans are looking at, because I want to do something,’” said Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, another conservative Democrat who’s been talking to the GOP on energy.
Asked how he’s reading the tea leaves on Manchin’s fate in 2024, Cuellar replied: “He wants to legislate.”
Still, Manchin isn’t totally tuned out of politics. He inquired about where his fellow red-state Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana stood in the lead-up to announcing a reelection bid.
But now, as Manchin wreaks havoc on the Biden administration, Tester has no plans to push Manchin on 2024.
“Joe being Joe, it’s just what Joe does,” Tester said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he runs. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t.”
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#Manchin #guessing #Senate #Dems #House #GOP
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 10, 2023
House GOP hates Biden’s budget — but is still hunting for its own formula

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Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), a former GOP budget chief, summarized the goals for his party by saying that Republicans should write “a ‘Hippocratic’ budget, that does no harm to our majority,” but one that also stays “responsible enough” to force a reckoning over spending.
Womack also warned, accurately, of the political risks in a budget that reaches too far:
“That likely becomes the next 30-second television ad against you.”
The lack of cohesive GOP vision so far is an ominous sign as McCarthy and his team wade knee-deep into talks on their own budget, which — along with Biden’s blueprint — raise the curtain for this year’s multiple high-stakes spending dramas in Washington. And there’s already tangible proof of House Republicans’ struggle, as their timetable for a budget release slips later into the spring, following Biden’s own budget delay.
Republicans and Democrats alike are most worried about the brewing fight over the nation’s debt limit, which could get ugly as a new speaker navigates one of the House’s narrowest majorities in decades with the U.S. credit rating hanging in the balance. And while the GOP’s budget resolution is unlikely to contain an exact prescription to resolve the debt limit, it would still be the first real movement in Biden and Republicans’ long-frozen discussion on where to go next.
House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington predicted his panel’s blueprint would take “at least” 30 more days to finish, while also stressing there’s “no timeline” for a release. But Arrington said he’s confident he can navigate both the narrow margin of his own panel and, more critically, on the floor. Even in his committee, Republicans can lose just two votes.
“We’re working on it,” Arrington (R-Texas) said. “218 is absolutely doable, but it’s going to take some work.”
Privately, some senior Republicans are digging up their budgetary playbook from 2011 — steered by then-House budget chief Paul Ryan — as a kind of model for future action.

Specifically, they’re discussing the party’s 2011 bill, known as “cut, cap and balance”, which that year’s GOP-led House passed amid Congress’ famously fractious Obama-era “fiscal cliff” debate. That bill, which included more than $1 trillion in cuts and capped federal spending to a set percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, never became law.
Still, GOP leaders saw it as a critical marker in talks with the Democratic-controlled Senate and White House that ultimately led to a massive 10-year spending cap deal.
“We’ll figure out something we can all vote for,” one GOP lawmaker familiar with the discussions said of the path forward for the House budget, requesting anonymity to speak candidly. “No way the Senate will take it up, but it’ll force them to respond.”
As for the GOP budget itself, Republicans are looking to a more recent era: the Trump one. Former President Donald Trump’s former budget chief, Russ Vought, has been advising Republicans in both chambers as they plot fiscal strategy.
Any conversation about specifics, though, is likely still weeks away. Instead, much of the early discussions have centered on where exactly to propose cuts. McCarthy himself has led the talks, which include top GOP lawmakers from various factions of the party, in a group he calls his “five families” — an apparent reference to “The Godfather.”
(Some Republicans are working on their own plan: the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus will meet Friday on the issue of the debt limit, a venue for its 64 members can begin to pitch their own ideas to resolve the looming stalemate.)
And while many conservatives had plenty to complain about in Biden’s budget, few were willing to suggest where the GOP might look for their own cuts. Asked about his preferred way to slash domestic spending, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) instead trashed Biden’s budget for its lack of fiscal trims.
“I think the real question that’s on my mind — he can’t identify any savings whatsoever? No savings?” Roy said. When asked how much further the cuts should go, he said: “I don’t have a specific number for it. But we’ve got to do real work.”
“We’re working on it. When we come out with our list, I’ll let you know,” added Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), another conservative who fought for fiscal austerity during McCarthy’s speaker race this year.
Clyde, who is also a House appropriator, stressed the importance of bringing spending down to fiscal year 2022 levels — a key part of McCarthy’s deal to secure the top gavel earlier this year. But the Georgian acknowledged that another conservative demand, balancing the budget over a decade, could take a little longer: “I think we should work toward that.”
Some, though, had ideas on where to cut. “The woke, the Green New Deal, some of the military green programs, reallocations, the Covid dollars that we will reclaim,” said Freedom Caucus member Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), another original McCarthy dissenter during the speaker race. “This is gonna be the most transparent budget that’s been put out in a long time.”
Any cuts to the Pentagon budget, however, won’t be an easy sell across the GOP conference.
“People need to realize the DoD budget hasn’t been keeping pace with the other federal budgets. So that shouldn’t be the first place we go to look for [cuts],” said Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.), a former Navy pilot who sits on the House spending panel. “I’ve been pushing for military pay increases and taking care of our troops.”
Still, the California Republican predicted that the GOP’s budget panel would ultimately come up with a blueprint that can get consensus: “I think, eventually, we will get there. There may be an emotional event, but we have no choice, so we’ve got to get there.”
And some Republicans vowed that their colleagues would ultimately get behind a blueprint even if it doesn’t tick every one of their boxes, because unity is more important than squabbling over a symbolic document.
“I think most members understand that budgets are aspirational,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-N.D.), who leads the GOP’s centrist Main Street Caucus.
Caitlin Emma, Olivia Beavers and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
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#House #GOP #hates #Bidens #budget #hunting #formula
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 10, 2023
Democrats draw ‘red line’ around Medicaid as GOP mulls cuts

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“No one’s interested in doing anything other than saving it to make it more solvent for those that might need it down the road,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) told POLITICO. “If you want to save [Medicaid] for future generations, it’s never too early to look at how to do that.”
Biden, who is expected to release his budget on Thursday, has spent much of the year castigating Republicans for proposals to cut Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act part of a broader effort to paint the GOP as a threat to popular health programs. Though Democrats, who control the Senate, will almost certainly reject big cuts to Medicaid, Republicans’ desire to rein in federal spending portends a drawn out political fight over a program that now insures more than one-in-four Americans.
Republican House and Senate leadership have been adamant that they will not cut those two entitlement programs, but have said less about Medicaid, which insures more than 90 million Americans. That number swelled during the Covid-19 pandemic, when states were barred from removing people who were no longer eligible.
Asked if assurances by GOP leaders that Medicare and Social Security are off the table have put more pressure on lawmakers to find savings in Medicaid, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) quipped: “It doesn’t take much imagination to figure that out.”
Some Republicans want to revive a 2017 plan to phase out the enhanced federal match for Medicaid and cap spending for the program — an approach the Congressional Budget Office estimated would save $880 billion over 10 years and increase the number of uninsured people by 21 million.
“If you remember back to the American Health Care Act, we proposed that we make some significant changes to Medicaid. I think you’re gonna find that some of those same ideas are going to be revisited,” said Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), a member of the House Budget Committee and the conservative Republican Study Committee, a group now working on its own budget proposal to pitch to GOP leadership.
Carter added that there is also interest in the caucus in abolishing Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, arguing that the majority of states that have opted to expand the program over the last decade might have “buyer’s remorse.”
“Medicaid was always intended for the aged, blind and disabled — for the least in our society, who need help the most,” he said. “Trying to get back to that would probably be beneficial.”

Carter and many other Republicans are also pushing for Medicaid work requirements, though the one state that implemented them saw thousands of people who should have qualified lose coverage.
“For the people who are on traditional Medicaid — the pregnant, children and disabled — there’s no sense in talking about work requirements,” Burgess said. “But for the expansion population, able-bodied adults who were wrapped in under the Affordable Care Act, yeah, that has to be part of the discussion.”
Other Republicans want to make narrower reforms. Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee, is looking at changes to value-based payments in Medicaid so that states aren’t “on the hook for treatments that don’t work.” Still others are weighing potential changes to areas within Medicaid, including provider taxes and how to handle coverage for people who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid.
The GOP members are spurred on by outside conservative groups like the Paragon Institute, which has been holding monthly briefings for Capitol Hill aides and backchanneling with members.
“If you look at what’s driving the debt, it’s federal health programs,” Brian Blase, the president of Paragon, who worked at the White House’s National Economic Council under the Trump administration, told POLITICO. “Either Congress will reform federal health programs or there will be a massive tax increase on the middle class.”
Democrats, for their part, are working to make any proposal to cut Medicaid as politically risky for Republicans as threats to Medicare.
“I worry that my Republican colleagues have, I guess, heard from the public about their desire to cut Social Security and Medicare [and] are looking elsewhere, and obviously poor people have very little representation in Congress, so that’s an easy target,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee.
Democrats hoping to shield Medicaid in the upcoming budget negotiations are emphasizing how many red states have voted to expand the program since Republicans last took a run at it in 2017. They’re also stressing that the people covered by Medicaid aren’t solely low-income parents and children.
“Right now at least 50 percent of Medicaid goes to seniors, and a lot of that is for nursing home care,” Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, told reporters. “People don’t realize that Medicaid is the ultimate payer for nursing home care once you run out of money or once your Medicare runs out.”
In a speech in late February, President Joe Biden excoriated Republicans for pushing deep cuts to Medicaid, arguing that doing so would threaten the finances of rural hospitals that are barely able to keep their doors open today.
“Many places throughout the Midwest, you have to drive 30, 40 miles to get to a hospital. By that time, you’re dead,” he said. “Entire communities depend on these hospitals. Not getting Medicaid would shut many of them down.”
Two people familiar with White House plans tell POLITICO that Biden is expected to include a federal expansion of Medicaid in the remaining holdout states in the budget he will submit to Congress later this week.
Adam Cancryn contributed to this report.
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#Democrats #draw #red #line #Medicaid #GOP #mulls #cuts
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 9, 2023
Democrats draw ‘red line’ around Medicaid as GOP mulls cuts

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“No one’s interested in doing anything other than saving it to make it more solvent for those that might need it down the road,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) told POLITICO. “If you want to save [Medicaid] for future generations, it’s never too early to look at how to do that.”
Biden, who is expected to release his budget on Thursday, has spent much of the year castigating Republicans for proposals to cut Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act part of a broader effort to paint the GOP as a threat to popular health programs. Though Democrats, who control the Senate, will almost certainly reject big cuts to Medicaid, Republicans’ desire to rein in federal spending portends a drawn out political fight over a program that now insures more than one-in-four Americans.
Republican House and Senate leadership have been adamant that they will not cut those two entitlement programs, but have said less about Medicaid, which insures more than 90 million Americans. That number swelled during the Covid-19 pandemic, when states were barred from removing people who were no longer eligible.
Asked if assurances by GOP leaders that Medicare and Social Security are off the table have put more pressure on lawmakers to find savings in Medicaid, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) quipped: “It doesn’t take much imagination to figure that out.”
Some Republicans want to revive a 2017 plan to phase out the enhanced federal match for Medicaid and cap spending for the program — an approach the Congressional Budget Office estimated would save $880 billion over 10 years and increase the number of uninsured people by 21 million.
“If you remember back to the American Health Care Act, we proposed that we make some significant changes to Medicaid. I think you’re gonna find that some of those same ideas are going to be revisited,” said Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), a member of the House Budget Committee and the conservative Republican Study Committee, a group now working on its own budget proposal to pitch to GOP leadership.
Carter added that there is also interest in the caucus in abolishing Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, arguing that the majority of states that have opted to expand the program over the last decade might have “buyer’s remorse.”
“Medicaid was always intended for the aged, blind and disabled — for the least in our society, who need help the most,” he said. “Trying to get back to that would probably be beneficial.”

Carter and many other Republicans are also pushing for Medicaid work requirements, though the one state that implemented them saw thousands of people who should have qualified lose coverage.
“For the people who are on traditional Medicaid — the pregnant, children and disabled — there’s no sense in talking about work requirements,” Burgess said. “But for the expansion population, able-bodied adults who were wrapped in under the Affordable Care Act, yeah, that has to be part of the discussion.”
Other Republicans want to make narrower reforms. Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee, is looking at changes to value-based payments in Medicaid so that states aren’t “on the hook for treatments that don’t work.” Still others are weighing potential changes to areas within Medicaid, including provider taxes and how to handle coverage for people who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid.
The GOP members are spurred on by outside conservative groups like the Paragon Institute, which has been holding monthly briefings for Capitol Hill aides and backchanneling with members.
“If you look at what’s driving the debt, it’s federal health programs,” Brian Blase, the president of Paragon, who worked at the White House’s National Economic Council under the Trump administration, told POLITICO. “Either Congress will reform federal health programs or there will be a massive tax increase on the middle class.”
Democrats, for their part, are working to make any proposal to cut Medicaid as politically risky for Republicans as threats to Medicare.
“I worry that my Republican colleagues have, I guess, heard from the public about their desire to cut Social Security and Medicare [and] are looking elsewhere, and obviously poor people have very little representation in Congress, so that’s an easy target,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee.
Democrats hoping to shield Medicaid in the upcoming budget negotiations are emphasizing how many red states have voted to expand the program since Republicans last took a run at it in 2017. They’re also stressing that the people covered by Medicaid aren’t solely low-income parents and children.
“Right now at least 50 percent of Medicaid goes to seniors, and a lot of that is for nursing home care,” Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, told reporters. “People don’t realize that Medicaid is the ultimate payer for nursing home care once you run out of money or once your Medicare runs out.”
In a speech in late February, President Joe Biden excoriated Republicans for pushing deep cuts to Medicaid, arguing that doing so would threaten the finances of rural hospitals that are barely able to keep their doors open today.
“Many places throughout the Midwest, you have to drive 30, 40 miles to get to a hospital. By that time, you’re dead,” he said. “Entire communities depend on these hospitals. Not getting Medicaid would shut many of them down.”
Two people familiar with White House plans tell POLITICO that Biden is expected to include a federal expansion of Medicaid in the remaining holdout states in the budget he will submit to Congress later this week.
Adam Cancryn contributed to this report.
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#Democrats #draw #red #line #Medicaid #GOP #mulls #cuts
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 9, 2023
D.C. crime rollback energizes House GOP efforts to squeeze Dems

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Democrats insist the effort turned to their advantage, since plenty of their incumbents welcomed the chance to distance themselves from President Joe Biden. Still, Wednesday’s vote ends weeks of Democratic angst over D.C.’s liberal crime bill, a particularly potent subject after their party’s humiliating losses in deep blue New York that ultimately cost them control of the House last November.
In the initial House vote in February, the vast majority of the House Democrats stuck with Biden — only to have him reverse his position, with Senate Democrats lining up behind him. And even as Senate Democrats emphasize that the circumstances surrounding the D.C. bill are unique, they’re also resigned to the reality that there are more disapproval votes to come.
“Unfortunately, the agenda on the Republican side is to just look for division and have investigations,” said Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the No. 3 Senate Democrat. “I would expect them to continue to look for ways to divide people and play politics.”

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., asks a question during a Senate Finance Committee hearing Tuesday, March 7, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
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Mariam Zuhaib/AP Photo
They won’t have to wait long. Republicans plan to use the same playbook to symbolically reject other Biden administration moves — including a vote this week on a wonky water rule that would cement broad authority for federal agencies to regulate streams and wetlands, an extremely unpopular policy in farm-heavy states.
For much of the House GOP conference, it’s seen as a win-win: A chance to declare their policy position, while putting vulnerable Senate Democrats on the spot in a campaign cycle that heavily favors the GOP. Unlike most bills, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer can’t block GOP-led policy statements from reaching the floor and they require only a simple majority for passage. That means the chamber’s Republicans only need two Democrats to join them to send it to Biden’s desk under full attendance.
On the water rule, for instance, several Republicans have been eagerly predicting they’ll win over Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.), two of the most endangered senators up this cycle who both hail from rural states. Manchin, who has not yet said whether he’s running for reelection, has already indicated he’ll support the measure, while Tester said Monday he is undecided.
With Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) out due to a medical issue and Manchin a “yes” vote, it’s expected to pass the Senate next week, assuming full GOP attendance. And this time, Biden has threatened to whip out his veto pen, after declining to do so on the crime bill.
“Our farmers and ranchers will be pissed about that,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.). Summing up the GOP approach generally, he added: “It’s an area that we can have some success. I don’t think it can be our only strategy. But we’re happy.”

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, the top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said she is optimistic about her chamber passing the water resolution, even if it won’t have the degree of Democratic support that the D.C. crime bill disapproval resolution is expected to garner.
“I would expect Democratic support, I wouldn’t expect it as a lot,” she said.
And there are more disapproval resolutions in the works. Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala) and John Boozman (R-Ark.) have introduced a resolution that would repeal a recent rule from the Department of Veterans Affairs that offered abortion counseling and services in certain cases. Manchin has already signed onto that effort as well.
Manchin and Tester were also the only two Senate Democrats to support a resolution disapproving of a Biden administration policy that enables managers to consider climate change and social goals in retirement investing decisions. But it’s the D.C. crime bill that has drawn the most ire within the Democratic Party.
Biden’s surprise decision to go along with the GOP’s push infuriated many House Democrats who voted against the repeal, some of whom will almost certainly face soft-on-crime attacks from Republicans in their reelection cycles. And it’s prompted some in the caucus to wonder if they should support future GOP-led measures even if the White House opposes them.
“Like in any house, in any office, and any household, there can always be better communication,” Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) told reporters, though he stressed an otherwise “unified” relationship with the White House. Democrats had to “navigate what is a hostile environment” with Republican control of the House, he added, noting the potential political potency of the legislation undoing Biden administration policy.
Still, it’s clear some are still feeling burned by the White House.
When House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) brought up the Biden administration’s threat to veto the Obama-era water rule measure during a closed-door meeting Wednesday, there were some audible groans in the room, according to two people familiar with the situation.
Across the Capitol, many Senate Democrats largely blame the discord between the D.C. Council and the city’s mayor for the dramatic back-and-forth. Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser vetoed the measure, only to have the city council override the veto — and then attempt to withdraw its plan earlier this week, in the face of congressional backlash.
“The mayor and the police chief both opposed it, the head of the D.C. Council said, ‘OK guys, don’t vote on it, we’ll go back to the drawing board,’” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). “So, unfortunately, the whole process has been flawed.”
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#D.C #crime #rollback #energizes #House #GOP #efforts #squeeze #Dems
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 9, 2023
House GOP plots crypto overhaul

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Why it matters: It’s unclear what the committee will propose, but the effort comes as federal banking and markets regulators ramp up enforcement of traditional financial regulations in the crypto space. Digital asset firms are urging Congress to carve out a specialized rulebook for crypto, as some jurisdictions like the European Union have started to do.
The recent crackdown by U.S. agencies will be the focus of a subcommittee hearing that Hill will lead Thursday. It will feature testimony from Paul Grewal, chief legal officer of the U.S.-based crypto exchange Coinbase.
“Europe, the U.K., Australia and Singapore — just to name a few — are putting in place regulatory frameworks that are creating high standards for crypto,” Grewal said in prepared remarks. “It is truly a race to the top, and the U.S. is already behind.”
Fed Chair Jerome Powell, testifying on Capitol Hill this week, suggested it would be a good idea for Congress to weigh in. Hill pressed him on it Wednesday.
“I do think it would be important for us to have a workable legal framework around digital activities,” Powell said Tuesday. “That is important, and something Congress in principle needs to do because we can’t really do that.”
Hill dropped some possible hints Wednesday about the GOP’s direction on a crypto regulation plan.
During the hearing, he asked Powell if a U.S. digital asset framework would help banks, brokers and custodians understand how they could participate in the market safely. He also asked if it should preserve the role of state regulators in overseeing the industry.
Republicans signal crypto support: Thursday’s digital assets subcommittee hearing will showcase a handful of Republican-led crypto bills that are generally supportive of the industry and its customers. The legislation may get a committee vote at a markup planned for March 28.

“I’m not sure that we’ll mark them up there, but we’re talking about it,” Hill said. “We may have some other ones introduced, so we may have some other priorities.”
The bills include proposals that would express congressional support for blockchain tech and digital assets, exempt blockchain developers from some reporting and licensing requirements and scale back tax reporting requirements for crypto firms.
The Senate: Senate Agriculture Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who has floated her own crypto regulation plan, said Wednesday she has “had some conversations” with her House counterparts.
“There’s certainly, I think, a general belief that this is an area that needs to be regulated, so [as] to protect consumers,” she said.
Asked whether she expected lawmakers to reach agreement, she replied: “I’m actually optimistic. I think the hard part is the farm bill.”
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#House #GOP #plots #crypto #overhaul
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 9, 2023
McCarthy’s GOP tries to move on from Tucker Carlson-Jan. 6 drama

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Yet, McCarthy’s decision to let Carlson access thousands of hours of Capitol footage from the riot has left a lingering cloud over his own leadership team, which was repeatedly pressed about the move as Carlson continues to downplay the violence of the siege by supporters of former President Donald Trump. Senate Republicans heaped criticism Tuesday on Carlson’s portrayal of the riot, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (though few directly dinged McCarthy).
“It seems like some in the press want to talk about Jan 6 every day. So do Democrats. They only want to talk about certain parts of it, though,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told reporters during a press conference where every question focused on the Fox News footage.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who represents a battleground district, said that House Republicans see attention to Carlson’s portrayal of Jan. 6 as “more of a media thing.”
“In the end, everybody should get access,” Bacon added, “but literally, I don’t hear anybody back home talking about it.”
With many in the GOP eager to change the subject, McCarthy and his leadership team are slated to hold a second press conference later Wednesday, focused squarely on President Joe Biden’s budget release.
But not everyone in the party is prepared to let it go. In one sign the GOP will continue to go on the offensive: Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) are working to set up a congressional delegation to visit people jailed for alleged crimes on Jan. 6, as POLITICO first reported.
Greene, who pushed GOP leadership to commit to a probe of Jan. 6-related detention, would lead the trip.
In addition, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) told reporters Wednesday that the GOP conference is starting to more closely review the work of the last Congress’ Democrat-run Jan. 6 select panel. Loudermilk recently secured the speaker’s permission to let accused Jan. 6 rioters — and eventually the public at large — access Capitol Police security footage that is in the House GOP’s possession.

“Part of it is: Why did they not address [Capitol security]?” Loudermilk asked of the select committee, which devoted one of the appendices of its final report to that issue. “And so we have [to] really pick up where they left off. And so we have the documents, we have the videos, we have a lot of information. And we’re going through that.”
While a handful of House Republicans openly criticized McCarthy’s decision to give the footage to Carlson, none mentioned the speaker by name and all pointed to the clips Fox News showed to argue that the Jan. 6 select committee only presented one side of the riot.
Since the first Jan. 6 segment aired on Monday night, several House Republicans have parried questions by claiming they did not see Carlson’s show or by otherwise avoiding the media. Others privately argued that McCarthy had made a strategic choice to engage with Carlson, one designed to appeal to the party base as he leads the GOP conference with a razor-thin majority.
Carlson, who has blasted McCarthy on-air in the past, stated on his show that he got no interference from the speaker’s office or his own higher-ups at Fox before broadcasting his segments. And McCarthy, for his part, has fiercely defended his decision to share material with Carlson in the face of criticism from the Senate GOP as well as Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger.
Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 8, 2023
House GOP faces a new Jan. 6 headache, courtesy of Tucker Carlson

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Inside McCarthy’s conference, few if any members would say outright on Tuesday night that their speaker made a mistake by sharing the footage with Carlson — in fact, only a handful admitted to watching the segment at all. One of those is McCarthy himself, who defended the move in the name of transparency when pressed by reporters Tuesday night.
But some House Republicans aired their displeasure with being forced to revisit the attack on their workplace.
“It’s definitely stupid to keep talking about this … So what is the purpose of continuing to bring it up unless you’re trying to feed Democrat narratives even further?” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) said in an interview, noting the videos didn’t show “anything we don’t already know.”
“I don’t really have a problem with making it all public. But if your message is then to try and convince people that nothing bad happened, then it’s just gonna make us look silly.”
While GOP senators — and their leader, Mitch McConnell — more vocally criticized Carlson for falsely portraying the attack as peaceful, House Republicans danced around the issue. (McCarthy responded to McConnell’s jabs by alleging that CNN published information about party leaders’ whereabouts on Jan. 6, saying he hoped the Senate leader would also be concerned by that.)
And many in the House GOP, as well as McCarthy himself, touted his goal of more transparency surrounding the attack or criticized what they argued was a one-sided narrative put forward by the last Congress’ Democratic-run Jan. 6 committee.
Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) said he has “a hard time with all of it,” contending that Jan. 6 “was not a peaceful protest. It was not an insurrection. It was a riot that should have never happened. And a lot of people share blame for that. The truth is always messier than any narrative.”
Asked if he disagreed with McCarthy’s decision to share footage with Carlson, Armstrong replied: “I don’t disagree with it any more than I disagree with the 1/6 committee narrative. It’s a red lens, blue lens. They are flip sides to the same coin. The truth is just a lot messier.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger wrote in an internal message to officers that Carlson’s Monday night primetime program “conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video” to incorrectly portray the violent assault as more akin to a peaceful protest. He added that Carlson’s “commentary fails to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during these less tense moments.”
It’s an unusually blunt statement from Manger, who has labored keep his department away from political conflagrations. And the pushback could easily put the chief at odds with McCarthy, who had granted Carlson unfettered access to internal footage related to the riot.
But Manger wasn’t alone — a number of Republican senators said they were, at the very least, troubled by Carlson’s depiction.
“Anybody that trespassed into the United States Capitol, you know, whether they did peacefully … did it illegally,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said. “I think that it’s unfortunate that [Carlson] is the exclusive holder of the tape recording. I just think it’s the kind of thing that should be made available to everybody at the same time, so as to not have a political angle to it.”
Asked about the portrayal of Jan. 6 on Carlson’s show, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) described the day as a violent attack and said any effort to “normalize that behavior is dangerous and disgusting.“
“I was here. It was not peaceful. It was an abomination,” added Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) “You’re entitled to believe what you want in America, but you can’t resort to violence to try to convince others of your point of view.”
McConnell held up Manger’s letter during his weekly briefing with reporters, saying that he would “associate myself entirely with the opinion of the chief of the Capitol Police about what happened on January 6th.”
A Fox News spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment on Carlson’s use of the footage from Jan. 6, when Donald Trump supporters overran the building in an attempt to disrupt lawmakers’ certification of Trump’s loss.
Capitol Police had previously turned over about 14,000 hours of footage — capturing events between noon and 8 p.m. on that day — to the FBI, which shared it with Jan. 6 defendants as part of criminal proceedings.
While dozens of hours of footage have emerged in public court filings, the bulk of it has remained under seal, and the Hill’s police force has warned that wide release of the footage could expose security vulnerabilities in the Capitol complex. McCarthy has indicated he hopes to publicly release large amounts of the video files, with some exceptions to protect the security of the campus.
Several Senate Republicans, including Sens. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Kennedy, said Tuesday that most of the footage should simply be made public.
Attorney General Merrick Garland declined to comment directly on Carlson’s report during a Tuesday press conference at Justice Department headquarters, but said the facts about the Capitol riot are well-established.
“Over 100 officers were assaulted on that day, five officers died. We have charged more than 1,000 people with their crimes on that day and more than 500 have already been convicted,” the attorney general added. “I think it’s very clear what happened on Jan. 6.”
McCarthy’s decision to share the footage with Carlson has already roiled some of the ongoing prosecutions of Jan. 6 defendants, several of whom have demanded delays in their criminal proceedings to review the voluminous materials. An attorney for a member of the Proud Boys, currently on trial for alleged seditious conspiracy on Jan. 6, said he intends to move for a mistrial as a result of the new footage.
A McCarthy spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.
On his Monday show, Carlson focused particularly on video of Capitol Police officers calmly accompanying Jacob Chansley — known as the “QAnon Shaman” for the garb and mannerisms he adopted on the day of the attack — through the halls.
Carlson inaccurately stated on-air that Chansley’s entrance to the Capitol remained mysterious, omitting footage showing Chansley inside the Senate chamber scrawling a menacing note to then-Vice President Mike Pence, who had declined then-President Trump’s calls for Pence to single-handedly overturn the election results. Chansley pleaded guilty in September 2021 to obstructing Congress’ proceedings and was sentenced to 41 months in prison.
Manger, in his note to officers, emphasized that Carlson never reached out for context about the officers’ actions.
“One false allegation is that our officers helped the rioters and acted as ‘tour guides.’ This is outrageous and false,” Manger wrote.
Manger also took particular issue with what he said was a “disturbing” suggestion by Carlson that the late Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick — who died of strokes on Jan. 7, 2021 — did not die because of anything that occurred the day before. Sicknick had been involved in some intense clashes with rioters and was assaulted with chemical spray in the early afternoon of the siege.
A medical examiner later concluded that Sicknick died of natural causes but suggested the stress caused by the riot could have been a contributor.
“The Department maintains, as anyone with common sense would, that had Officer Sicknick not fought valiantly for hours on the day he was violently assaulted, Officer Sicknick would not have died the next day,” Manger wrote.
Daniella Diaz, Nancy Vu, Josh Gerstein and Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 8, 2023
Interstate voter list org starts to crack as Florida, other GOP states quit

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ERIC — a little-known but an important part of America’s election infrastructure — has been facing an onslaught of criticism, ranging from false claims that the organization is a left-leaning group that inflates the voter rolls for Democrats to more behind the scenes fights on its internal structure and practices.
The group is responsible for identifying out-of-date registrations on member states’ rolls, which typically includes voters who moved either within the state or to another member state, or voters who died out of the state they’re registered to vote in.
The three states’ withdrawal also surprised some member states, with Michigan Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson saying the overall criticisms of ERIC “are not rooted in anything legitimate.”
In 2012, seven states — roughly split at the time between Democratic and Republican chief election officials — formed ERIC to address some challenges arising from the lack of a federally-mandated national voter registration database.
Since 2012, membership to ERIC has ballooned — with more than 30 members at its height that spanned deep red states to blue bastions across the country.
But recently, two states — Alabama and Louisiana — exited the compact over the last year, with Alabama’s new secretary of state alluding to conspiracy theories that percolated on far right websites about how the organization was secretly part of a liberal plot to take over voter rolls.
Florida, West Virginia and Missouri’s departure, however, publicly reveals the broader fight about the organization’s governance and bylaws. Some Republican secretaries of state have been pushing for changes to ERIC, which have been the source of tense discussions for months that the departing secretaries alluded to in their announcements.
Republicans secretaries have been pushing for an end to a requirement around eligible but unregistered voters — sometimes referred to as EBUs. In addition to list maintenance requirements around voters who have out-of-date registrations, ERIC’s bylaws require that state election officials contact those eligible but not registered people at least every two years to see if they would like to register. Some Republican officials want to scrap that requirement.

In his letter announcing his intention to withdraw from the organization, Missouri Secretary of State “Jay” Ashcroft called those mailings superfluous — saying they were going to people who “made the conscious decision to not be registered.”
Florida, notably, flouted the EBU mandates before the midterms and did not send the required mailers, several ERIC members with knowledge of the organization told POLITICO.
Some Republican secretaries have also been called for changing the composition of the organization’s board. The board is currently composed of one senior election official from every member state, along with non-voting ex-officio positions. One ex-officio position is vacant, and another is currently filled by David Becker, a former Department of Justice attorney who helped stand up the organization in 2012 and who is now the founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research.
Republicans have called for the elimination of ex-officio positions, which would effectively boot Becker from the board. Becker has been a vocal defender of the security of the 2020 and 2022 elections, notably rebutting many of former President Donald Trump’s and his allies’ claims that the presidential election was stolen from Trump. More broadly, Becker has regularly called out people he believes were criticizing or critiquing election systems in bad faith. Although not mentioned by name in the Monday’s announcements, the three secretaries allude to Becker in their decisions to withdraw by citing a “partisan” actor.
On Monday, Trump falsely claimed ERIC was “pump[ing] the rolls” for Democrats. On his social media site Truth Social, he called for Republican governors to pull their states out while also calling for severe restrictions on when people can cast their ballots, saying there should only be “SAME DAY VOTING” with limited exceptions.
Becker was not immediately available for an interview. ERIC’s executive director Shane Hamlin did not return a request for comment on Monday afternoon.
The decision by Florida to withdraw from the consortium comes just weeks after Byrd, an appointee of GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, said the partnership had helped the state to identify voters who have voted in more than one state. Byrd told members of a legislative panel that the information was used in the arrest of a woman last November who had allegedly voted in both Alaska and Florida.
“We do derive valid information from ERIC in order to do list maintenance,” Byrd told legislators.
DeSantis himself pushed for Florida to join the group in 2019 after former Gov. Rick Scott had blocked it. The likely presidential contender has made “election integrity” a talking point in his speeches and pushed to create a special unit to investigate election related crimes, including voter fraud. DeSantis even praised ERIC in passing during a press conference last summer as an important tool in that toolbox.
Some officials in the elections sphere expressed shock on Monday at the three states’ abrupt decision to withdraw from the compact. In Florida, local election supervisors learned about the move just minutes before it was announced by the DeSantis administration.
“Surprised with the suddenness of the decision to withdraw, but the important question will be what out of state resources will now be available to us to continue to maintain a clean and accurate voter registration database,” Bill Cowles, the supervisor of elections in Orange County, Fla., said in an email.
Multiple secretaries of state told POLITICO that they were not given any heads up by their counterparts that their states were withdrawing from the compact, with some being sharply critical of the move.
“Their decision to bail on the most effective election integrity collaborative in our country is similarly seen as more of a strategic way to gain favor among extremists as opposed to any sincerely held concern,” Benson wrote in a text to POLITICO.
Some were particularly caught off-guard by the timing of the announcements. ERIC members met late last month to discuss some of the proposed changes — where they were either voted down or tabled, according to several members. But the group’s governing board is set to meet again on March 17, and multiple ERIC members flagged that meeting as a potential make-or-break moment before Monday’s surprise departures.
“I think it probably casts a shadow over March 17,” Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, said in an interview. “It seems to have knocked the legs out from under some of the proposed changes because the states that those changes were meant to accommodate are gone.” Simon added that he hoped states that have recently left would reconsider.
But those dropping out said they didn’t want to wait.
“We gave them more than enough time,” Ashcroft, the Missouri secretary of state, said in an interview. “And at the February meeting, they made it clear that they weren’t interested in doing what needed to be done. So why wait?”
In the interview, Ashcroft alluded to the possibility that some of the states that left may be looking to set up an organization similar to ERIC.
“What I will say is that there have been conversations ongoing for a substantial period of time, about ‘how can we do a better job of cleaning our voter rolls and serving the people?’ Either by changing ERIC or by creating a new system, or if there is a way that states can do that solely in-house.”
It is unclear if any other states will follow Florida and the others out of the organization, at least before the March 17 meeting. But some states have threatened to do so.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, circulated a letter earlier on Monday before the withdrawals calling for changes to the organization. His letter references a “rushed and chaotic vote” taken at the February meeting, and calls for immediate action at the upcoming March meeting on proposals to eliminate the ex-officio positions and to allow members to use ERIC’s services “a la carte,” specifically calling for letting states skip EBU mailers.
“I want to emphatically state that Ohio remains in constant discussion with fellow member states about the future of ERIC, and I will not accept the status quo as an outcome of the next meeting,” LaRose wrote in his letter, which was shared with POLITICO. “Anything short of the reforms mentioned above will result in action up to and including our withdrawal from membership.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 7, 2023