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Congress Averts Government Shutdown
Everyone knows that you're not supposed to count your chickens until the eggs hatch. So, nothing is official here until it's actually official. However, it appears that the members of Congress have a deal to keep the government funded once the current budget expires at 11:59 p.m. tonight.
In what has become a proud congressional tradition, the folks on the Hill are going to kick the can down the road, but only a little bit. Specifically, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that the deal he has worked out with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will extend current funding levels through December 3. At that point, everyone will perform this little song and dance again. That said, it is improbable that anyone wants to be blamed for shutting down the government right before Christmas, Hanukkah, Festivus, and the winter solstice, so that "crisis" will undoubtedly also be resolved at the 11th hour. Whether there will be more can kicking, or an actual budget, is anyone's guess.
Schumer said that the bill will get a vote in the Senate this morning, then will be rushed over to the House immediately thereafter, and will be on Joe Biden's desk with plenty of time for him to sign it into law. If there is any possible bump in the road, it's the vote in the House, where there is much crankiness right now (see below), and where it is possible that one or more factions on one or both sides of the aisle could try to hold the bill hostage to make a point. This is not likely, but if things do go south, this is the most probable way.
That means that the considerably more calamitous issue, namely the debt ceiling, will soon stand on its own. The House passed a bill yesterday, basically along party lines, to raise the debt ceiling. McConnell has already announced that it's dead on arrival in the Senate. Meanwhile, Schumer continues to insist that including a debt ceiling increase in the reconciliation bill is not acceptable. And he is particularly focusing, right now, on pointing out that there just isn't time for it. That is to say, the $3.5 trillion bill still exists only in theory, and not much progress is being made in figuring out what the heck certain Democratic senators want (see below). Adding another giant, complicated issue is not going to make things any easier.
This argument surely has some merit; is it really plausible to hammer out a $3.5 trillion bill in a week, and to also figure out how much to raise the debt ceiling at the same time? Because a week, give or take a day or two, is about all that's left before the looming Oct. 18 insolvency of the federal government starts to affect the markets in a very negative way. Senate Republicans really might be left to choose between a clean, Democratic-approved debt ceiling bill or else crashing the U.S. economy. It could be that one week from now, Democrats will actually be grateful for Sen. Joe Manchin's (D-WV) intransigence and foot dragging. Politics is a strange game. (Z)
Pelosi Is Furious with the Centrists
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) spent Wednesday morning dressing down half a dozen centrists in her caucus who are acting like Republicans, and who are opposed to increasing the debt ceiling. In a closed-door meeting she probably once or twice mentioned that increasing the debt ceiling allows the Treasury to borrow money to pay the bills for stuff Congress already bought, including stuff many of them voted for. It does not authorize any new government spending. However, some other centrists probably had an inkling of what was going to happen, so they didn't bother to show up for the session.
Some Democrats are complaining that Pelosi is stuck doing this on her own. Make no mistake, she is extremely competent and experienced, but she isn't the leader of the Democratic Party. Joe Biden is. This may be the most important week of his presidency and they wanted him to show up and sweet talk, nudge, cajole, demand, threaten, or whatever he does best to get all the noses pointed in the same direction. These Democrats, who didn't want to be named, felt that they needed Biden's help and authority and he wasn't there when duty called.
Pelosi also said that she wants an agreement on the reconciliation bill, not just on the principles, but also on the actual text of the bill. Until members have actual text to work with, any agreement is too vague. But even if House members agree on text, they have to worry about Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin, who don't want to commit to any legislative language or a top-line amount of funding. This unwillingness to write their own bill and propose their own number frustrates Pelosi enormously. If they would write their own bill, at least there would be a starting place for negotiations. But Manchin is insisting that Congress first pass the hard infrastructure bill before he is willing to talk about anything else.
Of the three issues before Congress now, funding the government, the debt limit, and infrastructure, the first one has a hard deadline of ... today. If the government is not funded today, all the cabinet officers turn into pumpkins at the stroke of midnight, or something like that. Though it appears, somewhat predictably, that the only pumpkins in Washington will be for Halloween (see above). The debt issue can wait 2 weeks and for infrastructure there is really no hard deadline, even though Pelosi promised the centrists a vote last Monday and then delayed it until today, and now appears poised to delay it again. There is so much ill-will within the caucus that Pelosi really has her hands full. That's why some Democrats want Biden to jump in with both feet and start passing out carrots or using sticks, as he prefers.
Meanwhile, Biden is busy scratching his head, trying to figure out what makes Manchin and Sinema tick. What he desperately wants is for them to stop talking about what they don't want and start talking about what they do want. Once they say what they want, he can start working to see if it can be achieved. He thinks that once they are on board, he can get the progressives to agree, saying it's this or nothing. But until he can get Simena and Manchin to cooperate, his focus is on them and not on helping Pelosi.
If Biden wants to play hardball, there is conceivably a way he can do it. Manchin says that he wants Congress to pass the hard infrastructure bill first, then maybe he will talk about the reconciliation bill. Biden could call his bluff and ask Congress to pass the bill, which could happen in a day. Then Biden could say to Manchin: "You got your bill passed but I'm not signing it until you and Bernie agree on the reconciliation bill and get the Senate to pass it. You have 10 days. If the Senate doesn't pass a reconciliation bill within 10 days, I am going to veto the bipartisan bill." It is a huge gamble, but Manchin doesn't want to take the full blame for the bipartisan bill going down in flames and taking the Democratic party with it. (V)
Manchin and Sinema Could Sink...the Centrist Democrats
Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are nominally battling the progressives in their party over the reconciliation bill. But if things don't work out, it's the centrists, not the progressives, who are likely to feel the pain. Historically, the president's party takes a big hit in Congress, and especially in the House, in a midterm election. Here is a graph showing the number of seats "gained" by the president's party in midterm elections since World War II:
Bars below the horizontal black line show losses the president's party took. From Truman to Trump, it is the same story, except in 1998 and 2002. In 1998, the Republicans were about to impeach Bill Clinton and the voters rewarded them for that by denying them the usual House win. In 2002, just after 9/11, the country rallied around George W. Bush and he managed to stave off the usual losses. So barring something unusual, the Democrats will lose seats in the House next year.
That "something unusual" could be big, bold legislation in some area, be it saving democracy (see below) or infrastructure. But the Democrats are mostly fighting with each other now over the reconciliation bill. Progressives believe, probably correctly, that this is the last time Democrats will hold the trifecta for many years, so they have put together a huge (2,500-page) long-suppressed wish list and want to pass it now that they have a chance. They have even threatened to torpedo the smaller infrastructure bill if they don't get their way on reconciliation.
The reconciliation bill is being held up by Manchin and Sinema, in an attempt to keep the left from taking over the Party. However, the final result could be that no infrastructure bill and no voting rights bill pass. If that happens, the Republicans will campaign on the slogan: "The Democrats controlled everything and did nothing. Now give us a chance." This is virtually certain to lead to a huge wave, wiping out the Democrats in the House and maybe even the Senate (although the Senate looks better for the Democrats because they have good pick-up opportunities in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and maybe Ohio).
Who is going to take the brunt of a wipeout that Manchin and Sinema could cause? It won't be the progressives. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, is in a D+33 district and won her last election by 67 points. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is in a D+29 district and won by 44 points in 2020. All of the leading progressives are in hugely Democratic districts and are in no danger at all in 2022.
The folks who will get wiped out are the centrists in swing districts. Here is a list of the 19 districts the Democrats won by fewer than 5 points in 2020. All of these are flippable, especially the three open ones.
| District | PVI | Incumbent | Dem % | GOP % | Diff. |
| NJ-07 | R+3 | Tom Malinowski (D) | 50.61% | 49.39% | 1.22% |
| IL-14 | R+5 | Lauren Underwood (D) | 50.67% | 49.33% | 1.34% |
| IA-03 | R+1 | Cindy Axne (D) | 48.94% | 47.55% | 1.39% |
| VA-07 | R+6 | Abigail Spanberger (D) | 50.82% | 49.00% | 1.82% |
| MN-02 | R+2 | Angie Craig (D) | 48.18% | 45.92% | 2.26% |
| PA-17 | R+3 | Open (Conor Lamb) | 51.15% | 48.85% | 2.29% |
| MI-11 | R+4 | Haley Stevens (D) | 50.20% | 47.82% | 2.38% |
| WI-03 | EVEN | Open (Ron Kind) | 51.30% | 48.64% | 2.66% |
| GA-07 | R+9 | Carolyn Bourdeaux (D) | 51.39% | 48.61% | 2.78% |
| TX-15 | D+7 | Vicente Gonzalez (D) | 50.50% | 47.62% | 2.88% |
| NV-03 | R+2 | Susie Lee (D) | 48.75% | 45.77% | 2.98% |
| AZ-01 | R+2 | Tom O'Halleran (D) | 51.61% | 48.39% | 3.22% |
| TX-07 | R+7 | Lizzie Fletcher (D) | 50.79% | 47.45% | 3.33% |
| PA-08 | R+1 | Matt Cartwright (D) | 51.77% | 48.23% | 3.54% |
| WA-08 | EVEN | Kim Schrier (D) | 51.71% | 48.15% | 3.57% |
| MI-08 | R+4 | Elissa Slotkin (D) | 50.88% | 47.28% | 3.59% |
| PA-07 | D+1 | Susan Wild (D) | 51.87% | 48.13% | 3.75% |
| IL-17 | D+3 | Open (Cheri Bustos) | 52.02% | 47.97% | 4.05% |
| NV-04 | D+3 | Steven Horsford (D) | 50.67% | 45.80% | 4.86% |
Take a look at the PVIs. Thirteen out of the 19 are in R+x districts. They lean Republican, and only by the grace of God (and a basket of four-leaf clovers) are there Democrats sitting in those seats. None of the representatives are progressives. All are centrists. Some, like Bourdeaux, Gonzalez, and Spanberger, are formally Blue Dogs, but even the ones who are not, are moderates. In a Republican wave year, they will be the ones who drown, not Jayapal and AOC. The safest of the bunch is Gonzalez, in a D+7 district, but the Texas Republicans have made his district redder. Gonzalez may personally escape by moving to nearby TX-34, which is an open seat, but the district is probably lost.
So what Manchin and Sinema are likely to achieve if they insist on taking an axe to the reconciliation bill, and refusing to reform the filibuster enough to pass some kind of voting rights bill, is to wipe out the centrists and give the Republicans control of the House. Worse yet, from their point of view, the remaining House Democratic caucus will effectively move sharply to the left since the centrists will be gone and the progressives won't be. Is this what they want? We doubt it, but who knows. Usually politicians can think as far ahead as the next election, but these two don't seem to even be able to think a week ahead. (V)
Poll: Sinema Is Deeply under Water with Arizona Democrats
We have suspected this for weeks now, but it is official: Arizona Democrats don't like Kyrsten Sinema's antics. They don't like her vote against putting a $15/hr minimum wage in the pandemic relief bill, and they don't like her stance on the filibuster. Skipping the vote on the Jan. 6 commission didn't help, either. Now that she is aligned with Joe Manchin rather than Chuck Schumer, she has sunk even further. Currently, according to a Civiqs poll among Arizona Democrats, her favorability is 17% and her unfavorability is 65%:
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Needless to say, for an incumbent to be 48 points underwater with her own party is disastrous. She is not up until 2024, so she has time to recover, but this is a terrible place to start from. The poll is also a signal to potential primary challengers that unless she rights the ship fast, she will be very vulnerable to a challenge. To make it worse, the Senate Democratic leadership is very frustrated with her and is unlikely to come to her rescue. Occasionally, a senator takes a tough vote for the team that is unpopular back home, but at least the party will come to the senator's aid. Unless Sinema shapes up very fast—and we are probably talking days, not months—it is hard to see the DSCC fighting for her in 2024 if she has an opponent who looks like a strong general-election candidate. (V)
Why Can't Democrats Be Like Liz Cheney?
New York Times columnist Tom Friedman is not everyone's cup of tea, but he just wrote a column that makes a very good point. Friedman recently interviewed Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), with whom he disagrees on virtually every policy issue, but he came away impressed. Cheney is risking everything to save democracy. Then he asks why Democrats can't give up a little bit of their preferred policy to save democracy? He views progressives as saying: "If I can't get free pre-K for all kids, then the hell with democracy. It's not worth saving." And he views centrists as saying: "If I have to vote to increase the national debt by 3%, I'm not going to do it and the hell with democracy."
Maybe everything going on in D.C. now is all grandstanding and Democrats will eventually come together. Friedman's point is that the biggest threat to the country now is not related to pre-K school or the debt, but is instead that few, if any, Democrats are willing to even concede a little on their political wishes in order to try to save democracy. This would come at relatively little cost to them. In contrast, Cheney is willing to risk her whole career to stand up for democracy. Friedman also notes that Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) seem to be the only members of Congress willing to take a big risk. The others, in both parties, are too busy trying to get (or block) some policy issue to have time to worry about saving democracy.
Another Times Columnist, Jamelle Bouie, makes a similar point. Bouie says that when Trump announced his campaign in 2015, no one took him seriously. Now he's tried to pull off a coup, has the support of nearly the entire Republican Party behind him, and still no one is taking him seriously. Bouie's view, like Friedman's, is that haggling over details of the budget when democracy is in grave danger is ignoring the huge threat in front of the country. He also notes that failure to see the big picture isn't a new thing. Even after Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860, few people saw secession and a very bloody war to prevent it as a real possibility. After all, the North and South had been bickering about slavery for decades, so what was new now? He doesn't bring up Germany in the 1930s, when it was confronted with a guy nobody took seriously until it was too late, but he could have. Sometimes the problem is in front of your nose and you still miss it.
Another column comes from Edward Foley, who is worried that Donald Trump will try another coup on Jan. 6, 2025, and might succeed on the second try. He says that the Electoral Count Act of 1887 has to be updated to make it clear that Congress does not have the option of throwing out electoral votes it does not like. The revised law should say that Congress must accept whatever the state's election authorities certify. He also says the election process itself has to be strengthened and a right to vote be enshrined in law. Finally, he says that members of Congress should only be seated if they win an outright majority (in a runoff if need be), not a small plurality.
Of course, Friedman, Bouie, and Foley are limited in how much ground they can cover in short newspaper column. But how about a scholarly article from a professor who is one of the country's leading experts on election law, Rick Hasen of the University of California at Irvine? He just wrote a paper that begins with: "The United States faces a serious risk that the 2024 presidential election, and other future U.S. elections, will not be conducted fairly, and that the candidates taking office will not reflect the free choices made by eligible voters under previously announced election rules." It goes on to discuss how partisan state legislatures may replace the voters' preferences with their own, how a partisan Supreme Court may allow this, how private actions from vigilantes may prevent voting, how various groups may interfere with vote counting at different levels, and how a mob may prevent the assumption of power by the actual winning candidate.
Hasen is a professor of law, not political science, so he is focused on new laws to ensure that democracy holds, including:
- Paper ballots, chain-of-custody, and transparency requirements for all elections
- Rules limiting the discretion of everyone involved in counting or certifying the votes
- Laws limiting the power of state legislatures to interfere with elections
- Increased criminal penalties for anyone tampering with an election in any way
- Rules designed to counter disinformation about when, where, and how people can vote
The message from these four sources, and many others, is that preserving democracy is the biggest problem facing the country, yet we seem to be stuck arguing about policy issues, all of which will likely be revoked if democracy fails and an authoritarian government is "elected" and refuses to leave when the time comes.
Friedman's article concludes with a remark from Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN): "The absence of pragmatism among Democrats is as troubling as the absence of principle among Republicans." The implication of all these concerns is that some kind of law to shore up democracy, whether it is H.R. 1, H.R. 4, Joe Manchin's election law reform proposal or Hasen's, should have been on the front burner, not the back burner, months ago. (V)
Elizabeth MacDonough Rules Again
Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has struck again. Democrats are trying to rewrite immigration law under cover of how it affects the federal budget and MacDonough isn't having any of it. She shot down their first attempt at it, saying it could not be put into a reconciliation bill. Then they tried to reword it in an attempt to trick her into saying yes, but she wasn't buying. Yesterday, she said no again. Fundamentally, rewriting immigration law is not a budget issue and she is probably never going to approve its inclusion in a reconciliation bill.
And this may be the Democrats' last chance to convince her for a while. It is being reported that she has stage 3 breast cancer and will have an operation shortly. Here is the report:
The Senate Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, has been diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, a source familiar tells NBC News. She will have surgery and receive treatment is expected to be out 2-3 weeks, and her deputies will handle her duties in the interim.
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) September 28, 2021
Stage III cancers have already spread locally. MacDonough is famously extremely private and is unlikely to issue daily press releases after her operation. Our wishes go out to her for a successful operation and a speedy recovery.
That said, she is a hugely important player in the ongoing drama in Congress. Progressive Democrats keep trying to stuff immigration reform in the reconciliation bill and she keeps vetoing it. Maybe they will go for v3.0 but if she is out of commission for a while due to the surgery—physically, mentally, or emotionally—she may not be up to it. Most likely her doctors will tell her to take it easy for a few weeks. Doctors generally tell patients who have undergone major surgery to take it easy for a while. Then when she asks: "Does reading a 2,500-page bill and making a yes/no decision about which millions of people care passionately, qualify as taking it easy?" Her doctors may give her an answer that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) doesn't like. And while some of MacDonough's staff are going to pinch hit for her in her absence, they are unlikely to give the green light to something their boss quite clearly did not approve of. (V)
DNC Starts New Program to Register Voters of Color
Yesterday, the DNC launched a $5 million program to register voters of color in advance of the midterms. This is the DNC's largest-ever registration effort in a midterm cycle. It will be a ground-war effort, not an air-war effort, and will consist of hiring staffers to knock on doors and to call people, and online efforts to get eligible potential minority voters registered. The focus will be on Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Nevada, all of which have key Senate races in 2022.
Democratic turnout was high in 2020, with 81 million people voting for Joe Biden. The DNC is working to make sure that those voters don't skip the midterms, which will take some convincing. Midterm turnout always drops, especially among Democrats and even more especially among minority Democrats. One thing the DNC is concerned about is ensuring that anyone knocking on doors and talking to voters in person is vaccinated against COVID-19.
This new minority-focused program is not the only thing the DNC has on tap for 2022. There is also a $20 million all-purpose program aimed at the midterms, not specifically focused on minorities. In addition, there is another $25 million program to educate voters about the new restrictive voting laws in multiple states, so that voters will know how to qualify to vote there. (V)
Oregon Wins
Yup, the Beaver State came in first. It is the first state to officially complete its redistricting for the coming decade, as Gov. Kate Brown (D-OR) signed the redistricting bill one day before it would have been taken out of the legislature's hands.
For the first time in 40 years, Oregon got a new House seat. Although Democrats have the trifecta there, there was plenty of drama. Earlier this month, Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek (D) backed out of a plan to give the Republicans a bigger role in the process in return for stopping obstruction in other areas. As a consequence, the Democrats tried hard to get more seats this time, subject to the constraint that not all the Republicans live in the eastern part of the state. Here are the old and new maps:
If we compare the old map with the new map, we get this situation roughly:
- Old map: 2 Dem districts, 1 GOP district, 2 swing districts
- New map: 2 Dem districts, 2 Dem leaning districts, 1 GOP district, 1 swing district
The current congressional delegation is 4D, 1R. The new one will be 4D, 1R, and one up for grabs. This is the best the Democrats could do.
Why didn't the Democrats get greedier? As we have mentioned before, sometimes the best move is to shore up your own incumbents. The biggest change is in OR-04, the district of Peter DeFazio (D). It went from R+1 to D+9. This means DeFazio is safe now. Absent this change, in a Republican wave, he could have been swept out to sea. Now he can probably survive, no matter what. The price paid, however, is that OR-05 is less Democratic than it could have been. Protecting your own folks often comes first, though. (V)
Lewandowski Gets Fired for Sexual Harassment
Corey Lewandowski, one of Donald Trump's top aides and the person in charge of Trump's main super PAC, Make America Great Again Action, seems to have spent too much time around his boss and picked up some of his bad habits. At a charity event in Las Vegas this past weekend, he got the hots for Trashelle Odom, the wife of Republican donor John Odom. At a fancy dinner, he tried to hold her hand and she pushed him away. He touched her leg and she pulled her dress over it. He touched her back and she tried to get away. He touched her about 10 times and she rebuffed him every time. He also talked about the size of his genitalia, described his sexual performance, and showed her his room key. He also bragged that he controlled the fate of people in Trump's orbit and can control who gets elected and who gets taken out. Even this didn't impress Odom. When she left the room, Lewandowski followed her and said she had a "nice ass." Finally he gave up and threw a drink at her. Four people who were there corroborated this report to Politico. Many others saw it.
After the dinner, there was a party for the attendees to the event. Witnesses reported seeing Odom in tears and pleading for help as Lewandowski stalked her, while other attendees tried to keep him from her. She told people that she feared for her safety because her hotel room was adjacent to his.
Lewandowski is married, has four children, and is a practicing Catholic. He also has zero moral scruples, it would seem, and not many more brain cells. Hitting on someone in public where there are dozens of witnesses, many of whom have connections with the media, is not exactly a wise move. And this is not the first time he has been accused of sexual harassment.
Mrs. Odom was not pleased and neither was Mr. Odom. In fact, Mr. Odom has said he wants the $100,000 he donated to Trump's super PAC refunded unless Trump fires Lewandowski. And late Wednesday, that is exactly what happened. We're not sure if the first rule of Trump Club is "Nobody gets to engage in sexual harassment unless their last name is Trump" or "If you're going to sexually harass someone, make sure there are no other witnesses." Either way, Lewandowski broke the rule and is out. He will be replaced by Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general who famously dropped an investigation of then-private-citizen Trump after he gave her a generous bribe...er, campaign contribution. This is not the first time Trump has fired Lewandowski. He served as Trump's campaign manager in 2016 until Trump unceremoniously fired him. But he managed a comeback. Maybe he'll do it again.
As a small aside, the Washington Post ran an article yesterday citing a conservative website, American Greatness, which claims to have multiple sources that say Lewandowski has been having a months-long affair with Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD). Normally, we would take this with a pound of salt, but after Lewandowski's behavior with Odom, which is indisputable since there were many witnesses to it, it is at least plausible. Noem vigorously denied the story. To us, it sounds like a match made in...well, not heaven, but another place kinda similar. (V)
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