House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Sunday signaled openness to reforming the filibuster to protect voting rights after President Biden suggested he might be open to eliminating the procedure entirely.
Continue reading “Pelosi Signals Openness To Filibuster Carveout For Voting Rights”Biden Doesn’t Spare Manchin, Sinema In Reconciliation Remarks
During a Thursday night CNN town hall, President Joe Biden was fairly candid about the pieces of his Build Back Better plan that have crashed up against Democratic opposition — namely, opposition from Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). Biden was not coy about pointing fingers as he explained how Manchin doomed parts of his climate push, or how Sinema is blocking tax hikes on the rich and corporations.
Meanwhile, the Senate is gone for the weekend. The House is hot on its heels, finishing up some morning votes. Congressional leadership and the White House continue to finesse the package, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) telling reporters this morning that “more than 90 percent of everything is agreed to.”
The Sausage Making: Biden Doesn’t Mince His Words
Congress is back in session, but we’re continuing what began as a recess-time series of evening briefings on the reconciliation negotiations. Check in here to find out how the sausage-making is going.
President Joe Biden did not hold back in telling the audience exactly who is to blame for foiling various parts of his reconciliation plan during a Thursday night CNN town hall. He sweetened the finger-pointing with compliments — Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is “a friend,” Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) is “smart as the devil” — but name-checked them repeatedly for blocking parts of the bill.
“Where she’s not supportive is, she says she will not raise a single penny in taxes on the corporate side and/or on wealthy people, period,” Biden said of Sinema in one illustrative exchange. “And so that’s where it sort of breaks down.”
He was extremely candid about proposals he was unable to get done, like 12 weeks of paid family leave (now it’s down to four) and two years of free community college. He made it sound like Medicare expansions to cover dental, hearing and vision are basically out of the package.
He also made some major reconciliation-adjacent news, describing himself as “open to fundamentally altering” the filibuster, and later adding that he may be amenable to something more drastic than just a carveout for voting-related legislation. In his initial reluctance to broach the topic, he said that he was worried about alienating votes for his economic agenda.
Timeline Updates
- As of now, votes on both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the reconciliation package are scheduled in the House for next week. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said in guidance to members that he “aims” to take up the bills then.
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) did not confirm to reporters that the vote would definitely happen, but said that “more than 90 percent of everything is agreed to.”
- That would be in line with one of Democrats’ fairly soft deadline for the package: October 31, when the highway extension expires. It would also give Biden (depending on what ends up being in the package) some climate policies to tout as he heads off to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.
New Ideas
- Some Senate Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to make the child tax credit permanently fully refundable, along with trying to extend it as long as possible. Get some insight into these negotiations — where Manchin is the unsurprising obstacle — here.
- A new revenue stream is emerging: a billionaire’s tax. Senators like Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have been talking about it a lot lately, and the Washington Post has a new report out that senators are coalescing behind it. Be skeptical; Sinema has still not given it her support, and she’s proven herself to be against raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations so far.
- In lieu of free community college, Biden said Thursday that senators might want to beef up Pell Grants to help those with great financial need afford tuition.
- Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) gave reporters a list of possible climate alternatives to plug the Clean Electricity Performance Program-shaped hole: an industrial cap and trade strategy, greater investments in transmission, programs to spur innovation on the state level or curtailing emissions from big industrial polluters, such as cement plants.
- Key quote: “The only thing that would come close to that is a price on carbon,” Smith told TPM of the CEPP. “Other options can make a big difference, but it would take more than one of them.”
How A Licensing Violation Could Shut Down Trump’s New Social Media Site
Former President Trump’s new social network may only have thirty days to live.
Continue reading “How A Licensing Violation Could Shut Down Trump’s New Social Media Site”Senate Democrats Aim To Protect Child Tax Credit In Case Of 2022 GOP Takeover
To the dismay of a large swath of Senate Democrats, they may only manage to extend the enhanced child tax credit another year in the reconciliation bill. Many are still fighting that possibility in favor of a longer run.
Meanwhile, quietly, they’re pushing to install a safety net in case those efforts fail.
Continue reading “Senate Democrats Aim To Protect Child Tax Credit In Case Of 2022 GOP Takeover”Eastman Insists He Def Doesn’t Believe Memo’s ‘Crazy’ Plots To Steal Election Were Real
John Eastman, the Trump legal adviser behind the infamous memo (which had two similar drafts) detailing various strategies for then-Vice President Mike Pence to thwart the 2020 election certification, is insisting that he totally didn’t think those options were legit and were, in fact, totally bonkers, and Eastman does not believe in ideas that are bonkers, thank you very much!
Continue reading “Eastman Insists He Def Doesn’t Believe Memo’s ‘Crazy’ Plots To Steal Election Were Real”Trumper Privilege
My colleague Nicole Lafond already discussed this in the post immediately below this one. But it’s so bizarre I simply have to discuss it as well. As Nicole noted, Kevin McCarthy and Trump toady Jim Banks want what I guess we could call backsies on the whole Jan 6th committee thing.
Republicans had plenty of opportunities to get a commission or committee in which they not only had complete control over who served on the Republican side but veto power over any significant action the body took. They refused that and after stonewalling for months ended up with one that gave the final say on membership to Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi accepted some McCarthy nominations but put her foot down in the case of two reps who are such consistent supporters of the Big Lie and the insurrection that it was absurd to place them on the committee investigating either. Now Banks is sending letters to executive departments claiming that he is in fact that rightful ranking member (i.e., top Republican) on the committee.
Continue reading “Trumper Privilege”Le Gasp! Biden Finally Embraces Changing The Filibuster
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.
Here We Go!
After months of largely avoiding calls to reform the filibuster while GOP senators were gleefully weaponizing it to obstruct his agenda, the President said during a TV town hall event last night that he’s had enough: It’s time to “fundamentally alter the filibuster.”
- Biden suggested he might be open to eliminating the filibuster entirely.
- Meanwhile, he proposed bringing back the “talking filibuster,” where senators would actually have to go up to the floor and speak.
- Biden isn’t necessarily limiting his call for filibuster reforms to a carveout for voting rights or the debt limit either. He said potential changes to the filibuster could be extended to “maybe more” of his policy proposals.
Biden Gives Deets On Reconciliation Talks
The President laid out the specifics of the reconciliation package that his fellow Democrats are (possibly) close to finding a deal on after weeks of negotiations with holdouts Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV).
- Here’s what’s likely to be remain in the sweeping legislation and what’s probably getting left on the cutting room floor, according to Biden during his CNN town hall on Thursday night:
- 12 weeks of paid parental leave has been whittled down to four.
- Free community college is out, so the President is working to increase Pell grants in the bill instead.
- Biden opposes work requirements for the proposed extended child tax credits despite Manchin’s demands.
- Expanding Medicare to include dental, vision and hearing is a “reach.” The legislation may include a $800 voucher for dental coverage instead.
- Biden hasn’t dropped his clean electric program in the face of Manchin’s opposition to that provision in the bill.
- The corporate tax rate increase is likely out thanks to Sinema. Biden hopes to replace that provision with a 15 percent minimum corporate tax instead.
- Negotiations over the bill are now down to “just down to four or five issues,” Biden said.
Hoisted With His Own Petard
This had to hurt: Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick (R) promised to pay a bounty from his campaign coffers to anyone who reported election fraud that leads to a conviction. The first recipient is the scion of a family of Democratic operatives who turned in a Republican in Pennsylvania for voting twice.
- Patrick’s campaign shelled out $25,000 to the tipster after some delays.
Tennessee GOPer Says Civil War Isn’t Over
During a special session in the Tennessee legislature earlier this week, state Sen. Frank Niceley (R) shared a memory of him telling his grandson that it was “too early to tell” if the South had really lost the Civil War because it never ended and the South is winning right now, actually.
- That’s because when he compares “their Northern cities with our Southern cities” and “their debt loads,” “I think I can tell my grandson the war between the states is going on and we’re winning.”
- Anyway, the South lost the Civil War.
- Fun fact: Niceley was one of the Tennessee Republicans who joined a lawsuit to force then-President Barack Obama to turn over his birth certificate in 2009.
Lawyer From Trump Election Suit To Oversee Texas Elections
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Thursday appointed a new secretary of state who will supervise the state’s election process: an attorney who had worked on one of Trump’s many fruitless lawsuits attempting to undo the 2020 election.
- The lawyer, John Scott, joined a lawsuit by the Trump campaign on Nov. 13 that tried to block the certification of Pennsylvania’s election results. He then withdrew from the case just three days later.
- Scott also defended Texas’ notorious voter ID law as deputy attorney general in 2014. He was working under Abbott, who was the attorney general at the time.
The State Of GaetzGate
Two top prosecutors from Washington, D.C. have joined the Justice Department’s sprawling child sex trafficking investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), according to the New York Times.
- Both are experts in corruption cases: One of them is reportedly a public corruption investigator who specializes in child exploitation crimes, while the other reportedly leads the public corruption unit.
Schumer Endorses Dem Socialist For Buffalo Mayor
With other state Democrats running in the other direction, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Thursday boosted India Walton, the self-identified democratic socialist who won the Democratic nomination for mayor of Buffalo.
- Walton’s surprise win over the longtime incumbent mayor in the Democratic primary has been awkward for state Democrats. Up until yesterday, Schumer and other top New York Democrats had declined to endorse Walton or recognize her victory.
- Schumer declared on Thursday that Walton won the primary “fair and square and is the nominee.”
- Schumer’s endorsement came several days after New York State Democratic Party chair Jay Jacobs compared endorsing Walton to endorsing Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
- The incumbent Democratic mayor, Byron Brown, is running a write-in campaign and is leading the race, according to a poll by local outlet WGRZ.
Paris Hilton Confirms That Legislation Is Hot
Entrepreneur and socialite Paris Hilton’s been visiting the Capitol over the past several days to help Democrats work on a bill to protect kids from abusive “troubled teen” facilities, including the one Hilton herself was sent to when she was 16 years old.
Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!
The Sausage Making: Okay, The Friday Deadline Was A Pipe Dream
So, the Senate will not be reaching a decision on the reconciliation framework by tomorrow. Many of the senators are likely already home, with no votes scheduled until Monday.
But things continue to progress. There are still skirmishes playing out on various fronts: the child tax credit, climate provisions, Medicare expansion, payfors. And despite them, the package still appears to be moving forward.
Gossip We Are Taking With A Grain Of Salt
- You’ve probably seen the “will Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) switch parties” brouhaha. He seems to be enjoying the story, thundering to reporters that it’s “bullshit” one day, only to acknowledge that he has brought it up (to resounding nos from the Democrats) the next.
- Manchin enjoys being in the spotlight. (A spotlight he loses if he’s not a key member of the party currently in power — just something to keep in mind.)
- The greatest showman from West Virginia told Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) with gusto that he’d be happy with no money at all in the reconciliation package, according to an Axios report. That is probably true, but it’s hard to imagine he’d hang in the negotiations for this long if he was going to act on that compulsion.
- Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) has agreed to enough various revenue streams to pay for a package the size of which is currently being discussed (in the $2 trillion neighborhood, maybe just under), according to multiple reports. The language is weird and anonymously sourced, but we’re keeping our eye on this.
Potential Problems
- Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), as he previewed to a group of us this morning, may be taking some potential revenue streams off the table, per a new letter he sent to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
- Some Democrats are trying to make the child tax credit permanently fully refundable, but Manchin is proving an obstacle. We expect to have more info for you on this soon.
The Unique Manchin-Sinema Problem
- The irony of these negotiations is that Manchin and Sinema often disagree with each other, making it very hard to appease both. Manchin is all for tax reform — up to a point, at least — when it comes to the wealthy and corporations. Sinema is not. Sinema is all for a carbon tax. Manchin is not.
- That being said, the non-Manchinema senators are equally sick of answering questions about the both of them, I can attest.
Where Things Stand: GOPer Tries To Cosplay As Jan 6 Committee Member
Let’s go back in time for a minute. Back when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was putting together a panel of House members to participate in the Jan. 6 select committee to probe the insurrection, she rejected two of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) panelist picks (the Jims) — Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Jim Banks (R-IN).
The decision was rooted in her correct understanding that both of the Jims would use the committee’s probe of the Capitol attack as a platform for spewing the Big Lie and other Trumpy nonsense and conspiracy theories, thus likely derailing the serious work of the committee. Both Jims not only voted to overturn the election results on Jan. 6, but they also both signed onto a request out of Texas asking the Supreme Court to invalidate election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
In retaliation for Pelosi’s move against the Jims, McCarthy pulled all of his Republican picks from the panel, leaving only Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) as GOP members (who joined out of their own volition). Both have been highly critical of Trump for some time and have, at least thus far, taken their assignments very seriously, signing off on all of the committee’s subpoenas and publicly supporting each layer of the committee’s investigation. Cheney is the committee’s vice-chair.
But one of the Jims, Jim Banks, is apparently now trying to play dress up — pretending to be a member of the panel probing the insurrection.
Continue reading “Where Things Stand: GOPer Tries To Cosplay As Jan 6 Committee Member”