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Showing posts from July, 2021

McConnell stirs GOP intrigue with support for Biden’s infrastructure bill

Moments before the Senate took a pivotal vote on its bipartisan infrastructure deal, negotiators zeroed in on the most important undecided member: Mitch McConnell. The Senate minority leader stayed quiet for weeks but finally tipped his hand on Wednesday afternoon on the floor to a bipartisan group of colleagues, according to senators and aides. He told them he would support moving ahead on the bill, provided that the legislation coming to a final vote was their agreement — not something written by Senate Democrats. It was the first inkling, among even McConnell’s closest allies, that the Kentucky Republican would support one of President Joe Biden’s top priorities: a bipartisan effort to plow $550 billion in new spending to roads, bridges, public transit and broadband. No senator in McConnell’s inner circle knew that he was about to take the plunge until moments before the vote, and some didn’t know until McConnell broke the news on Twitter. The rumbling on the floor “was the first...
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GOP lawmaker challenges McCarthy over 'bulls---' mask mandate enforcement

Rep. Chip Roy confronted House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Thursday about a new Capitol Police bulletin that suggests congressional staffers and visitors could be arrested if they fail to heed the chamber's new mask mandate. “This is bulls---. We need to lead,” Roy, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told McCarthy during a brief meeting of GOP lawmakers in a Capitol reception room, according to two sources familiar with the exchange. McCarthy replied to a frustrated Roy that his plan is to win back the majority in 2022 and become speaker, the sources said. Their back-and-forth illustrates the mounting fury on the right about efforts by Capitol security officials to enforce mask-wearing rules amid the surge of Covid's Delta variant. A Capitol Police guidance flier circulated Thursday morning by Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) states: "If a visitor or staff member fails to wear a mask after a request is made to do so, the visitor or staff shall be denied e...
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Pelosi, Portman skirmish over bipartisan infrastructure timeline

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Rob Portman clashed Sunday over the next steps for the bipartisan infrastructure package. During separate appearances on ABC’s "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Pelosi and Portman (R-Ohio), the lead GOP negotiator for the bipartisan infrastructure talks, offered dueling views as to when the bipartisan package should head to President Joe Biden’s desk for a signature. Pelosi said Sunday that while House Democrats are “rooting for the infrastructure bill to pass,” she reiterated her pledge that the House will not take it up unless the Senate also passes a separate $3.5 trillion social spending package. “The fact is that the president has said he wants to have a bipartisan bill, and we all do, but that is not the limitation of the vision of the president,” Pelosi said. “I won’t put it on the floor until we have the rest of the initiative.” Portman, however, responded that Pelosi’s remarks are “entirely counter to what President Biden...
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Pelosi teases Kinzinger addition to Jan. 6 Capitol attack investigation

Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday confirmed that she's likely to appoint GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger — a rare Donald Trump antagonist in his party — to the select panel investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection as part of a boosted Republican presence. Asked by ABC’s “This Week” whether she planned to appoint “more Republicans to the committee like Congressman Adam Kinzinger,” Pelosi responded: “That’s my plan.” “I’m not going to announce it right this minute,” she said when pressed on when she would name more Republicans, “but you could say that’s the direction I would be going.” Pelosi’s comments come days after House Minority Kevin McCarthy withdrew the remaining Republican appointments to the panel following the speaker's rejection of two of them, Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana. Both are aggressive defenders of the former president, and they were already gearing up to shift the focus onto Democrats, rather than Trump and their party. “I wanted to appoint...
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Unlikely Senate alliance aims to claw back Congress’ foreign policy powers ‘before it’s too late’

A bipartisan group of senators is pushing to grant Congress an unprecedented role in crafting U.S. foreign policy and drastically expand lawmakers’ ability to roll back key presidential national-security decisions. A newly unveiled bill effectively recalibrates the balance of power, putting Congress on near-equal footing with the commander-in-chief as the driver of Washington’s posture toward the world. It aims to reverse the decades-long erosion of the House and Senate’s authority to shape American foreign policy. “Before it’s too late, Congress needs to reclaim its rightful role as co-equal branch on matters of war and national security,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who introduced the bill alongside Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). “The bipartisan National Security Powers Act will make sure that there is a full, open and public debate on all major national security decisions.” The bill would make it easier for lawmakers to outright reverse the president’s ...
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Rob Portman says IRS enforcement off the table for funding $1.2T infrastructure package

Sen. Rob Portman said Sunday that IRS enforcement was officially off the table as a means for funding the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. The Ohio Republican, one of 22 senators working in the bipartisan group to negotiate the infrastructure framework, said increasing IRS enforcement as a way to raise new revenues faced pushback from Republican colleagues — one of the reasons it was no longer a viable option. He also said Democrats are considering including that proposal in the separate $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, which “created quite a problem.” Portman said the group of 22 is meeting again Sunday to negotiate ways to pay for the package. “That's one reason we're having initial meetings today and had more meetings over the past few days on this topic. There are other ways to do this. There’s legislation, one called the Medicare Rebate Rule that provides significant revenue,” Portman said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “I've been on the pho...
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Strange but true: Bernie takes a 'very pragmatic' turn

Bernie Sanders gave Washington whiplash this week — and it was all part of his plan. Barely 24 hours after the Vermont senator publicly rejected a $3.5 trillion spending deal following a Monday meeting with President Joe Biden, he turned around to tout it as the most transformational policy proposal in nearly 100 years. The shift in tone was a tactic Sanders used to coax moderate Democrats into going far higher than they might have otherwise felt comfortable. After he had insisted on shooting for the moon with a $6 trillion budget proposal, $3.5 trillion suddenly looked pretty reasonable. The episode revealed a conciliatory side to the liberal icon often depicted by the media and Republicans as wild-eyed and well to the left of his party. Sanders has opposed some of Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s policies and nominees, but never in instances when his vote would prove decisive. He’s also softened his opposition to a bipartisan infrastructure deal, recognizing that h...
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GOP support for bipartisan infrastructure deal going wobbly

Jerry Moran is one of 11 Republicans who endorsed the Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure framework. He also has plenty of concerns about it. The Kansas Republican said the idea of using increased IRS enforcement to generate some of the nearly $600 billion in new spending “has some red flags among Republicans,” who have openly worried about being targeted by the Biden administration. Moran’s also concerned his vote for a bipartisan bill could help kick off a massive subsequent round of spending by Senate Democrats on party lines. “Part of the motivation is trying to make certain that we don’t spend $6 trillion," Moran said on Monday evening. If "this is lending itself toward that outcome then I would no longer be a yes at that point in time." Moran isn’t alone. Another of the framework’s supporters, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), said at the moment he is not 100 percent committed to voting for the bipartisan plan. “We don’t know what’s in it yet,” Rounds said. “I’m favora...
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Hill security talks at a new impasse with Capitol Police running low on cash

High-stakes talks on Hill security funding looked grim Monday with the Capitol Police close to running out of money for salaries after the Senate’s top Democratic appropriator offered a $3.7 billion plan — nearly double the size of a House-passed bill the GOP has spurned as too big. Appropriations Chair Patrick Leahy released his own massive proposal to cover the financial fallout from the Jan. 6 Capitol attack after Republicans countered Friday with a $632.9 million bill that scraps hundreds of millions of dollars for Democratic priorities to secure the Capitol complex. Leahy’s offer, which doesn’t attempt to bridge a widening partisan divide, would also patch Capitol Police and National Guard budget shortfall amid growing urgency to assist both forces as they run short of cash and resources for salaries and training. The Capitol Police in particular is expected to get hit with a funding pinch as soon as next month, with no fix in sight. Leahy’s offer of help is much more genero...
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New poll shows Nina Turner's lead shrinking in Ohio special election

Nina Turner opened an early lead in this summer’s hotly contested Ohio special election — but the progressive heavyweight might not be running away with it. A new internal poll by her top competitor, Cuyahoga County Democratic Chair Shontel Brown, suggests the Democratic primary race has tightened. In the survey, conducted in early July, Turner led with 43 percent, followed by Brown with 36 percent. That 7-point gap is a much closer spread than earlier polling from both candidates. An April survey from Brown's campaign found her trailing Turner by 32 points, 42 percent to 10 percent. And Turner’s late May poll showed her with 50 percent of the vote, up 35 points over Brown. But the election has been ramping up ahead of the Aug. 3 primary, as the candidates and their allies launch competing TV ads and endorsements. Both women are vying to replace Marcia Fudge, who left the deep-blue northeast Ohio seat to join the Biden administration. The race has drawn outsized national inte...
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