House Passes H.R. 1

The House passed H.R. 1 yesterday 220-210 strictly along party lines. If it becomes law, it would greatly expand the franchise and prevent many kinds of voter suppression. We had a story about it on Monday, so we won't repeat the features of the bill here. If you want more detail on it, check out the articles in The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The reactions to the bill were predictable. For example:

• Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): "Everything is at stake. We must win this race, this fight for this bill."
• Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL): "If you're ranking the most important legislation of the year, that is way up there."
• Rep Terri Sewell (D-AL): "The right to vote is under attack."
• Donald Trump: "This monster must be stopped. It cannot be allowed to pass."
• Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA): "It is an unparalleled political power grab."
• Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL): "If signed into law, H.R. 1 would be the greatest expansion of the federal government's role in our elections that we have ever seen."

The bill will have an uphill fight in the Senate. Don't think "tax bill." Think "climbing Mt. Everest in the winter barefoot, naked, and with no tent, oxygen, or equipment." Republicans will oppose it like they have opposed no bill since the Affordable Care Act. If it passes, most of their voter-suppression techniques will be outlawed and everyone who is eligible to vote will be able to do so easily. If that happens, the Republican Party will have to either mutate faster than the coronavirus or it will become extinct.

Republicans will defend their opposition to the bill on the grounds of the Constitution and states' rights, but that is just the cover story. It is really about power. In reality, a large majority of Americans do not want what the Republicans are selling, so winning elections is largely about trickery. Fundamentally, here is the Republicans' business model. It has four major points:

• Money: The Party is largely funded by millionaire and billionaire donors. Yes, there are small donors too, but Republicans have been far less successful with small donors than the Democrats. It is the big donors who matter most. They are intelligent people who want something in return, namely tax cuts for rich people and corporations and less government regulation of business. But there aren't nearly enough of these people to win elections.
  
  
• The culture wars: The biggest bloc of Republican voters are evangelicals. They don't care so much about economic issues but are very motivated by abortion, gay rights, trans rights, and similar "culture war" issues. The big donors tend to be libertarians and really don't like the government interfering in people's private lives, but they have to put up with this stuff to get their tax cuts, so they pretend it isn't there and just ignore it.
  
  
• White grievance: Donald Trump was a political genius of sorts. He was the first to truly realize that a lot of working-class white men don't care much about tax cuts or abortion, but don't like the demographic changes that have been occurring in the country the past 40 or 50 years, resulting in their gradual loss of political power. He exploited this to the hilt and got elected in 2016 largely on account of it.
  
  
• Voter suppression: Even with a lot of big donor money, evangelicals, and resentful white men supporting the GOP, that is not quite enough to win elections. That is why this fourth pillar—voter suppression—is so critical. Without it, Republicans will lose a lot of elections 52% to 48% or thereabouts (except in very red districts and states) going forward. If voter suppression is taken away from them, the current iteration of the Republican Party will never be able to win a presidential election again, and they know it. That is why killing H.R. 1 is a life-or-death cause for them. Democrats know this, too, which is why the bill is H.R. 1 and not H.R. 2305.
  

All eyes will be on the Senate now. The big hurdle is that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) doesn't want to abolish the filibuster. If the Democrats want to pass this bill—and their future as a party depends on that—they will have to overcome this hurdle somehow. As we have suggested before, maybe Manchin would be OK with forcing an actual filibuster—not now, but in a few months. There is zero chance that Democrats can win the Republicans' hearts and minds, but they might be able to drive them to and beyond the point of physical exhaustion. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is 87 years old. How many hours could he stand at the podium (with no chair, no food, no drinks, and no bathroom breaks) reading the Iowa phone book?

It's a crazy way to legislate and it would waste a couple of weeks as elderly Republicans dropped like flies, but if Manchin agrees, it could be a way to pass the bill. This would mean total war, though in practice, there is already total war. An actual filibuster over something this important would simply rip the veneer off and expose what the Senate already is. Carving out an exemption to the filibuster for voting bills would be simpler, but Manchin might not buy that. Right now, Manchin is one of the most powerful people in the country and surely knows it. (V)

Biden Agrees to Limit Checks

Some moderate Democrats in the Senate want to limit the COVID-19 relief checks to people earning under $80,000. In the House bill, people making up to $100,000 would get something. The Senate Democrats want to cut the $80,000 to $100,000 earners out altogether. Joe Biden has agreed to this concession, as did many other Democrats who might otherwise have preferred a more generous giveaway. However, those affluent suburbanites who won't get anything this time might be disappointed.

The bill has to be vetted by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation. Once that has been done, the voting will begin in what is known as the vote-a-rama, in which amendments are offered and voted on. Remember that the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate each have 50 members, so a single defection by a Democrat on any amendment could change the bill. If the Democrats can agree on what they want in advance, they can avoid that. In any event, the bill differs from the House bill because it does not have the $15/hr minimum wage in it, so one of two things will have to happen. Either the House will have to accept the Senate bill and pass it or there will have to be a conference committee to make the sausage. That could take time if House members don't like the Senate bill.

One big advantage that the Democrats have now is a clear party leader: Joe Biden. What he says basically goes. If he makes it clear what he wants, that will be in the bill that passes before the current jobless benefits expire on March 14. What Joe wants, Joe gets. (V)

Biden Is Being Cautious about Releasing Trump's Tax Returns to Congress

A 1924 law unambiguously states that if the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee (or one of two other officials) asks for anyone's tax returns, the Secretary of the Treasury shall provide them. Former secretary Steven Mnuchin imagined that there was a clause in there that said "if the chairman has a valid reason for asking for it." There is no such clause. The chairman, Richard Neal (D-MA), has asked for the returns again. Now the hot potato has landed on new Treasury secretary Janet Yellen's lap. But she is just going to pick it up very carefully and put it on her kitchen counter until Joe Biden tells her what to do with it. Right now, Biden is being noncommittal.

Biden surely knows that if Neal gets the returns he will give them to all the members of the committee. It will probably take under 10 minutes before the Washington Post gets them. The New York Times already has them. The Post might be less cautious than the Times and simply post them on its website and tell the lawyers to get ready for the lawsuit. Or maybe Neal will cut out the middleman and post the returns on his committee's website himself since Congress can't be sued.

What Biden is probably waiting for is the confirmation of many more members of his administration. If he gives Yellen the green light, many Republican senators will be very angry and could try to stall on confirmations. Biden needs to get over 1,000 people confirmed and doesn't want to anger the senators right now (or maybe ever). On the other hand, there is one senator who would love to see Donald Trump dragged through the mud, as long as his fingerprints aren't on it and he can moan about how unfair it was to Trump. That senator's name is Addison M. McConnell Jr. and he hails from Kentucky. You might have heard of him. (V)

Congress Is Being Even More Cautious than Biden

Joe Biden is merely stalling for time before he releases Trump's tax returns to Congress. Congress is outright hiding. There was a House session scheduled for today, but security officials warned the leaders that militants were planning to breach the Capitol (again). Remember, today is the day that Donald Trump is "scheduled" to be inaugurated as the 19th President of the United States (although 18th president Ulysses S. Grant won't be there to wish the "President-elect" well, since he's indisposed...or perhaps decomposed). Anyhow, House leadership made a decision not to be in session so that if the Capitol is breached, none of the House members would be present in the building. However, the Senate will be in session.

If the Trumpers do decide to storm the Capitol again today, the situation will be rather different from the one on Jan. 6. Since neither the representatives nor Mike Pence will be in the building, the insurrectionists' main targets from January (Pence, Nancy Pelosi, AOC) will not be available to them. Meanwhile, the number of Trumpers will be smaller, while law enforcement—well aware of the possibility of trouble—will undoubtedly be present in large numbers and armed to the teeth. Odds are that the would-be rioters decide Insurrection v2.0 is a bad idea, but you never know. These folks aren't exactly George Patton or William Tecumseh Sherman when it comes to tactics and strategy. They do have one or two things in common with Erwin Rommel, however. (V & Z)

Biden Calls the Governor of Texas a Neanderthal

Joe Biden is not one to use strong language, but yesterday he accused the governor of Texas of "Neanderthal thinking" in acting like the pandemic is over and everything can go back to normal. If Gov. Abbott (R-TX) is thinking like a Neanderthal, then presumably he is one. Archaeologists will no doubt be delighted because they thought the last Neanderthal died about 40,000 years ago. They weren't actually stupid, just not quite as sharp as the modern humans who replaced them.

Biden said "It's critical, critical, critical, critical that they follow the science...I wish the heck some of our elected officials knew it." Biden wasn't the only one to issue a warning. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, warned governors and mayors not to lift the COVID-19 restrictions prematurely. This was her third warning in less than a week.

Biden also said that by May 31, the U.S. will have enough vaccine to inoculate every adult in America. However, he also noted that he didn't expect everyone to get the vaccine by that date.

Not everyone in Texas is on board with Abbott's decision to pretend the virus is gone. For example, a Texas movie theater chain said that masks and social distancing would still be required in its theaters. On the other hand, Texas is not the only state to start reopening. Mississippi did, too, although the governor asked everyone to continue wearing a mask. In Louisiana, bars will reopen and live music will be allowed indoors. In Michigan, some restrictions on restaurants will be lifted. Even in San Francisco, some restrictions will be lightened, with restaurants, museums, and movie theaters allowed to open at limited capacity. (V)

Statehood Bill for Puerto Rico Is Introduced

Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL) and Puerto Rico's Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González (R-PR) introduced a bill into the House on Tuesday that calls for a binding election asking Puerto Ricans if they want to become a state. González, like Dels. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) and Stacey Plaskett (D-VI), is a nonvoting member of the House who can serve on committees, introduce bills, and do almost everything except take part in floor votes.

Puerto Rican statehood has been on the ballot six times since 1967. The most recent one was in Nov. 2020, when 53% of the island's voters said they wanted to be a state. If Puerto Rico becomes a state, it would get two senators (of course) and four representatives, but it is far from certain it will elect only Democrats to Congress. Although the current governor Pedro Pierluisi is a Democrat, González is a Republican. If both of them ran for the Senate and won, that wouldn't change the partisan balance. This makes it more likely Republicans will accept Puerto Rican statehood as compared to D.C. statehood. The converse is also true; Democrats are much more excited about D.C. statehood. That said, D.C.—which would surely be admitted first—would be the 51st state, and people don't love odd numbers like that, so Puerto Rico would likely follow soon thereafter. 52 is a much nicer number than 51, what with 52 weeks in a year, 52 cards in a deck, 52 white keys on a piano, and so on. Nobody likes 51.

You might be surprised at the names of some of the Democrats who oppose statehood for Puerto Rico (or, at very least, oppose the bill proposed by Soto and González). And it's not solely about the possibility that the island(s) might elect a Republican or two or three. Among the harshest critics are Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Reps. Nydia Velázquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (both D-NY). Basically, the various votes for Puerto Rican statehood have all been of dubious legitimacy, for various reasons. The recent vote in favor of statehood was driven substantially by recent arrivals to Puerto Rico who came for the lack of federal income and capital gains taxes. Schumer has remarked that "We oughta tell that governor (Pierluisi) none of this bull**it that you let millionaires and billionaires escape taxes." Velázquez and Ocasio-Cortez describe the current situation as "colonialism," and have put forward their own bill that would allow Puerto Ricans to elect an assembly of delegates that would decide if statehood, independence, or some other course is the best choice for them. Anyhow, statehood for D.C. is much further along, and is considerably less fraught, so that is why they will surely reach the finish line before Puerto Rico does (assuming Puerto Rico ever does). (V & Z)

Real Divide: Senate Republicans vs. House Republicans

Forget the Democrats vs. Republicans divide. That's not the big one. The real post-Trump divide is between Senate Republicans and House Republicans. Technically they are in the same party, but in practice, they might as well be on different planets, Planet Earth and Planet Trump.

This gulf will be increasingly apparent as the 2022 (and later, 2024) elections heat up. Senate Republicans are backing the incumbent Republicans, no matter what their views on Donald Trump. House Republicans are busy eating their own. Senators in general have broad constituencies and have to keep all of voters' diverse views in mind. Many House Republicans are in carefully gerrymandered, very Trumpy districts. All they have to worry about is a primary from the right, so they tend to move as far to the right as they can, and hug Trump as tightly as they can, to leave no breathing room for a challenger. Senators don't have to do that and rarely do.

Senators even say things out loud that no House member would dare say. Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) recently said: "It's important that we not be a personality-based party." To most House Republicans, them's fighting words. They are most definitely members of a personality-based party and scared to death of the personality in question. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), who is contemplating running for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), replied to Thune with: "Our more liberal, establishment brethren in the Senate have not been faring very well. Those were the only ones that lost in 2020." When a House Republican calls John Thune the L-word, you know there is a problem.

House Republicans are just crazier than Senate Republicans. There's no other way to put it. Back in January, over 100 House Republicans signed an amicus brief asking to have the election results thrown out because they didn't like them (and that would include their own races). No senator signed it. Just eight senators challenged any of Biden's electoral votes and many of those are thinking about running for president in 2024 in the Trump lane.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the former chairman of the NRSC, said: "The House is more sensitive to the immediate situation. And the Senate sort of takes a little bit of the longer view." That is what the founders intended, although they probably didn't expect House members to ignore reality, as if it is no longer relevant.

When it comes to dealing with the Biden administration, the two chambers also differ. Pro forma, all Republicans oppose everything Biden and the Democrats do. But in practice, Senate Republicans might be open to cutting deals with the Democrats on the minimum wage, infrastructure, and other issues if they can get things they want as well. On the minimum wage, for example, House Republicans see their constituents as simple 19th century yeoman farmers for whom the minimum wage is irrelevant since they are not employees. Republican senators, on the other hand, know that many of their voters live in towns and cities and are most definitely wage earners. In any event, Senate Republicans are at least willing to discuss raising the minimum wage. Not to $15/hr, but maybe to $10/hr or $12/hr if they can get enough goodies for businesses in return. Technically, this is called negotiating in good faith. House Republicans don't do this.

The Republican leaders of both chambers are both on the record about 2022—in a sense. As noted, the Senate Republican leadership strongly supports every Republican incumbent in 2022, specifically including Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who voted to convict Trump in the second impeachment trial. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is on the record refusing to say whether he supports the Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in the first place. How's that for leadership?

Part of the difference between the two conferences is simply their sizes. The Senate Republican conference of 50 members has lunch together three times a week. Every one of them knows all the others personally. They may not all be best buddies, but they do get along. No Republican senator hates Lisa Murkowski. In fact, many of them wish they had the [insert one or more body parts here] to vote to convict Trump, as she did. If anything, they secretly admire her courage. All of them want to see her reelected. By contrast, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) remembers his days as a House member having breakfast with 200 other House members—eating his breakfast on his lap and waiting for his turn to speak for 1 minute. He said the rowdy House caucus meetings are not conducive to solving problems. (V)

The Grift Is Everywhere

Warren Harding got a bad rap because one of his cabinet members (Interior Secretary Albert Fall) was an outright crook, and a few others were on the shady side of the line. But the entire Harding administration was like a Sunday School choir compared to the Trump administration. Now that they are out of the White House, many of Trump's aides are trying to cash in by starting super PACs and nonprofits to help Trumpism flourish. But don't be fooled. It's all about extracting money from the rubes. It always is with them.

Case in point: Brooke Rollins spent almost 3 years as Donald Trump's chief domestic policy adviser. Did Trump actually have a domestic policy? Fighting for white supremacy, perhaps, but that was Stephen Miller's baby, not Rollins'. Building a wall in Arizona and Texas and putting children in cages is really more foreign policy than domestic policy. So what did Rollins actually do? Whatever it was, it wasn't much. Still, she has raised millions of dollars and hired 30 people for her America First Policy Institute. Rollins said that people are "really, really excited" about having a vehicle for advocating Trump's policies.

And she's not the only one. Trump's former campaign manager, Brad Parscale, who was pretty good at grift when he was on the team, is back at it. He has created the American Greatness Fund. Its mission is "inspiring the grassroots energy of the 'Make America Great Again' movement." Parscale's PAC will create a website to track elections and combat so-called cancel culture. Websites are expensive, though, so send money. So far, Parscale has raised $300,000 according to Axios.

Meanwhile, another former Trump campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who will manage Trump's "revenge super PAC," also has his own side gig. He has created "Fight Back Now America," with a mission to support candidates and policies that seek to advance the America First agenda. The PAC will raise money to oppose people like Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and help Republicans in 2022 who are deemed sufficiently Trumpy. Why does Lewandowski need his own super PAC when he is running Trump's main one? (Hint: he can probably pay himself royally from his own, whereas Trump is known as a skinflint and probably won't pay him so royally for running the revenge super PAC.)

Now on to Ben Carson, the former HUD secretary whose only time in the news in 4 years was when he (illegally) bought a $31,000 dining room set so he could have lunch in style in his office. Carson, a famous physician before he got into politics, styles himself as an intellectual now that they are back in fashion after a hiatus of 4 years. So, he has set up a think tank: the American Cornerstone Institute. It will study election integrity, one of Trump's fixations. He also set up a PAC, Think BIG America, so he can suck up money from the tiny, tiny part of Trump's base (a.k.a., about 99% of them) that is not so much into think tanks. Carson said: "We'll be very interested in who are the people who are advocating visions that are logical and make sense." With brilliant leadership like that, why wouldn't you want to whip out your credit card and send him at least $100?

Next, Russ Vought, Trump's OMB director. He is even thinkier than Carson, so he has his own competing think tank, the Center for American Restoration. Its goal, according to Vought, is to give voice to the common, forgotten men and women across this great country. Sounds like he just invented social media. Maybe it will become popular with forgotten men and women.

If these organizations were primarily in it to support the lost cause, they wouldn't care so much whom Trump supporters donate to. But because it is all about the money, they are competing with each other for each dollar. This means that they are sure to clash with one another as well as with Trump's own PACs. No doubt some of the organizers will get rich from their projects. Whether any of them will make America great again remains to be seen. Don't bet on it. (V)

Even the Grifters Get Grifted

Consider the case of poor Kimberly Klacik. She decided to become famous by running for the seat of Elijah Cummings in the special election after his death. As a Republican. In a badly gerrymandered majority minority district that covers half of Baltimore, is D+26, and is 59.1% Black. Against Kweisi Mfume, who had previously represented the district before he left Congress to become CEO of the NAACP. Yes, Klacik is Black, but so is Mfume. And he is a Democrat who has a long track record of working to help Black people. Her track record, on the other hand, consists of dropping out of college and then founding a nonprofit that ultimately raised $7,000 and gave clothing to 10 people. Oh, and she doesn't live in the district. She did surprisingly well in the special election, all things considered, losing by only 50 points.

Either Klacik is extremely foolish or she was in this entirely for herself. Probably she figured she would get conservatives from all over the country to back her for her bravery in taking on a fairly establishment Democrat in a D+26 district he had already won four times in the past. She made a clip of herself wearing a tight red dress while walking past abandoned buildings in Baltimore asserting that Democrats don't care about Black people. What could possibly go wrong?

It worked. At first. She raised $8 million from conservative donors, a huge amount for a House race and a completely unprecedented amount for a race where the candidate has zero chance of winning. She must have known that, but the donors clearly didn't so they kept throwing money at her. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) raised $23 million for a special election in Georgia in 2017, back when he was running for the House, but that race was potentially winnable. He lost, but only by 3½ points, not 50 points.

Now is where the story gets interesting. Almost none of the $8 million went to Klacik's campaign. Almost all of it went to fundraising companies and consultants of various kinds. Arsenal Media, which produced the 3-minute clip, got $500,000. Olympic Media, which promoted it, got $3.7 million. She also paid millions to WinRed, the Republicans' small-donor processor. That money ended up with other firms. In the end, she spent only $66,000 on television time for her ads. In short, nearly all the money the would-be grifter Klacik raised was grifted away from her by much smarter grifters.

But we all like stories that end well and this one does, too. Klacik is now a paid contributor for Fox News and Newsmax. Still, it does illustrate that if you are planning on swindling people, you have to watch out for other people trying to swindle you, especially if you are new at the game and they aren't. (V)

The Future of QAnon

Die-hard QAnon believers are going to descend on D.C. today in the expectation of seeing Donald Trump inaugurated (more above). Some of the better-heeled ones may stay at the Trump International Hotel, which tripled its rates for the occasion. All of them will be surprised when Trump is not inaugurated today. At most there might be another riot at the Capitol, but this time law enforcement will be completely prepared and not blindsided. So, what will happen to QAnon when it all fizzles? Vox asked eight experts about the future of QAnon after its prophecy fails spectacularly today. Here is a summary of their responses:

• Andrew Marantz (New Yorker): It's a religion, and religions have staying power. The Rapture was supposed to happen on May 11, 2011. It didn't happen on schedule. The guy who made the prediction, Harold Camping, said he made a math error and picked another date. Did he lose many adherents? Probably not.
  
  
• Jane Coaston (NYT): When Baptist minister William Miller predicted that the world would come to an end on March 21, 1844, and it didn't, the Millerites broke into factions. One of them, the Seventh-Day Adventists, is still around because it said the event took place entirely in heaven, which is why we couldn't see it down here. QAnon will concoct some story about the Great Fizzle and take up another conspiracy theory. The point of QAnon is not that Hillary is at Guantanamo Bay or that Nancy Pelosi eats children. It is that their notion of evil will be punished and their notion of good will be rewarded.
  
  
• Adrienne LaFrance (the Atlantic): It's a baby religion born on the Web. It is carried by people who feel it in their bones and are not likely to find a new religion any time soon. Their belief system is reality-proof.
  
  
• Jared Holt (DFRLab): It's not a logical movement so it can't be debunked. The followers will believe it for the rest of their lives. They will just shift the goalposts. Some may even claim the prediction did come true but then something else happened to obscure it.
  
  
• Travis View (QAnon Anonymous podcast): The followers see themselves as persecuted renegades, not dupes. True believers are moving from mainstream social media to Gab or Telegram. They continue to trust the plan because they have already invested so much in it. They will also blend in more with neo-Nazis and other extremist groups.
  
  
• Charlie Warzel (NYT): It won't go away. It is being fed by the fever swamps, but the mainstream media can't get enough of it. This may give it more oxygen and attract more followers. That could drive the Republicans into the arms of the farthest right-wing fringe. The establishment greatly underestimates that a huge portion of the country values anyone who can piss off liberals. If you can trigger the libs, you are a hero. If the Democrats try to make Marjorie Taylor Greene the face of the Republican Party, it could backfire spectacularly because she is so good at making the elites angry. That's what they want, not $15/hr.
  
  
• Hillary Sargent (freelance journalist): The predictions of QAnon have been proven wrong before and the number of believers has only grown. That will continue. They will become even more radicalized over time.
  
  
• Kevin Roose (NYT): It may be almost over. With Trump out of office and no new posts from Q, the community is running on fumes. However, even if QAnon dies a quiet death, its beliefs may be watered down and absorbed into the Republican Party. This may push the party even further to the right. By 2024, Marjorie Taylor Greene may be considered a moderate.
  

So, seven of the eight basically see it as a religion and don't think reality will have any effect on the worshipers. It will continue and get more extreme, possibly blending with other far-right groups. If it is taken over by the Republican Party, then we could end up with 45% of the country believing in it. (V)

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