Today in Washington
THE HOUSE: Convenes at 2 (after
five weeks away) to take up as many as 11 “suspenders,” the shorthand for bills
non-controversial enough to secure passage by a two-thirds majority. (Roll calls
won’t happen before 6:30.) The most important measure on the roster is designed
to stabilize the finances of the Federal Housing Administration by setting
minimum annual premiums for government mortgage insurance, requiring fraudulent
lenders to reimburse the FHA for mortgage insurance losses and allowing the
agency to bar unscrupulous lenders from its insurance
programs.
THE SENATE: Convenes at 2 and at 5:30 will confirm Stephanie Marie Rose, the top federal prosecutor in Cedar Rapids, for a seat on the U.S District Court in Des Moines. She isn’t controversial; the roll call is a classic “bed check” vote, arranged so party leaders can have some face time with members of the rank-and-file they haven’t seen during the summer break.
THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama has nothing on his public schedule; Biden is also off-camera, meeting with his senior staff.
THE CHALLENGERS: Romney will speak at 3 (D.C. time) to a rally in Mansfield, one of the pivotal cities in the battle for Ohio’s 18 electoral votes — the second-biggest prize (after Florida’s 29 EVs) among the battleground states. He’s also got sit-downs with a collection of swing state TV anchors. Ryan has a fundraiser at 2 in Portland, though Oregon’s 7 EVs can be counted on to go Democratic.
NOT MUCH TO DO: The lights are coming back on in the Capitol this afternoon, but the official scheduling calendars for the House and Senate mark just 13 days of legislating before lawmakers are sent away to campaign full time, and on their own dime. But there’s every reason to believe Boehner and Reid will find rare agreement on at last one thing this truncated fall — that neither the House nor the Senate needs to be in session all those days.
There is not nearly enough legislation to keep them here — or, more accurately, not more than a couple of measures that both sides are willing to label as pre-election must-get-dones. All alone on the top tier of that list is $525 billion legislation to keep all discretionary programs funded until the end of March; it's a "clean CR" (not many policy riders or extra funding provisions), and it will get passed by the House this week and cleared by the Senate next week, thereby warding off what’s become annual hand-wringing about an impending government shutdown fully a dozen days before zero hour. Maybe as part of that package, maybe not, provisions will be made to help the ranchers and farmers who have seen their swing state economic fortunes badly damaged by this year’s awful drought.
And that’s about it. One final push to get Congress to finish a comprehensive, five-year update of agriculture and food stamp policies is almost certainly going nowhere; instead, a one-year extension of the current farm bill is all that can be reasonably expected. There will be drives to extend the foreign intelligence surveillance law and create the same normalized trade relationship with Russia as with almost all other countries. Both are likely to quickly be rebuffed in the Senate, where on this foreshortened timetable even the threat of a filibuster will likely persuade Reid to give up and move on. The big summertime drives to overhaul the Postal Service and create a meaningful government-and-business partnership to bolster cybersecurity? Off until the lame duck, at the earliest. The same goes for the annual defense authorization bill.
...BUT PLENTY TO SAY: And so there’s a real chance the pre-election adjournment could come as soon as the end of next week, on Sept. 21 — but likelier a week after that. One big reason for sticking around is fundraising. An avalanche of campaign cash will pass from lobbyists, advocates, trade association bosses and other special interests into the hands of incumbents at events scheduled long ago, with the expectation lawmakers would remain in town to reap the largess until at least early October. (The DCCC alone is keeping track of 184 different money events between tonight and the end of the month.)
When not slipping checks into their briefcases and handbags, lawmakers will be using the House and Senate chambers, committee rooms and East Front TV standup positions for a series of show votes, self-promoting news conferences and politically charged hearings. Citing their concerns about national defense (and egged on yesterday by Romney), House Republicans plan a vote to disarm the across-the-board spending cut trigger that 70 percent of them voted to set last summer. Senate Republicans will insist on at least one more vote on repealing the health care law. And Senate Democrats want to force a collection of votes on aspects of the job-creating agenda Obama rolled out a year ago, which has been largely ignored ever since.
TRAIL TIPS: (Money) Obama raised $114 million in August and Romney brought in $112 million, their campaigns said today. That’s essentially a fundraising draw for last month, suggesting the two will both be able to buy whatever they want in the battleground states. But the symbolic victory in the numbers goes to the president, because it’s the first time since May that he raised more than his challenger — and 50 percent more than what he had raised in either July or June. (It’s also true that Romney’s August number was his best monthly total yet.)
(California) Three of the Senate’s most prominent defense hawks, Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham and independent Joe Lieberman, will endorse Howard Berman today in his race for a San Fernando Valley congressional seat against fellow incumbent Democrat Brad Sherman. Both are on the November ballot because of the state’s new top-two-finishers primary system, and so each is eager to win over the independents and Republicans who could sway the outcome of their race — and who make up only slightly less than half the district’s population. Berman has been stressing his skills at bipartisan compromise in his campaign, and his work as the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee has afforded him openings to cut deals with the three senators, who often form a hawkish triumvirate on Armed Services on issues including nuclear weapons proliferation, human rights and arms sales to nations that harbor terrorists.
(Connecticut) The latest maneuver in Republican Linda McMahon’s increasingly aggressive push for the open Senate seat is a complaint filed with the Office of Congressional Ethics over the weekend alleging that her Democratic opponent, Chris Murphy, violated House rules when he took out a home equity loan at a bank he represented as an attorney before coming to Congress. Murphy has been considered the heavy favorite to take Joe Lieberman’s place, but since the August primary all the momentum has seemed to be with McMahon, the former pro-wrestling impresario who has spent more than $65 million combined by now on this Senate run and her first bid two years ago.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Today, politically safe House Republicans Ted Poe of Texas (64) and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming (58); yesterday, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware (49) and House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon of California (74).
THE SENATE: Convenes at 2 and at 5:30 will confirm Stephanie Marie Rose, the top federal prosecutor in Cedar Rapids, for a seat on the U.S District Court in Des Moines. She isn’t controversial; the roll call is a classic “bed check” vote, arranged so party leaders can have some face time with members of the rank-and-file they haven’t seen during the summer break.
THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama has nothing on his public schedule; Biden is also off-camera, meeting with his senior staff.
THE CHALLENGERS: Romney will speak at 3 (D.C. time) to a rally in Mansfield, one of the pivotal cities in the battle for Ohio’s 18 electoral votes — the second-biggest prize (after Florida’s 29 EVs) among the battleground states. He’s also got sit-downs with a collection of swing state TV anchors. Ryan has a fundraiser at 2 in Portland, though Oregon’s 7 EVs can be counted on to go Democratic.
NOT MUCH TO DO: The lights are coming back on in the Capitol this afternoon, but the official scheduling calendars for the House and Senate mark just 13 days of legislating before lawmakers are sent away to campaign full time, and on their own dime. But there’s every reason to believe Boehner and Reid will find rare agreement on at last one thing this truncated fall — that neither the House nor the Senate needs to be in session all those days.
There is not nearly enough legislation to keep them here — or, more accurately, not more than a couple of measures that both sides are willing to label as pre-election must-get-dones. All alone on the top tier of that list is $525 billion legislation to keep all discretionary programs funded until the end of March; it's a "clean CR" (not many policy riders or extra funding provisions), and it will get passed by the House this week and cleared by the Senate next week, thereby warding off what’s become annual hand-wringing about an impending government shutdown fully a dozen days before zero hour. Maybe as part of that package, maybe not, provisions will be made to help the ranchers and farmers who have seen their swing state economic fortunes badly damaged by this year’s awful drought.
And that’s about it. One final push to get Congress to finish a comprehensive, five-year update of agriculture and food stamp policies is almost certainly going nowhere; instead, a one-year extension of the current farm bill is all that can be reasonably expected. There will be drives to extend the foreign intelligence surveillance law and create the same normalized trade relationship with Russia as with almost all other countries. Both are likely to quickly be rebuffed in the Senate, where on this foreshortened timetable even the threat of a filibuster will likely persuade Reid to give up and move on. The big summertime drives to overhaul the Postal Service and create a meaningful government-and-business partnership to bolster cybersecurity? Off until the lame duck, at the earliest. The same goes for the annual defense authorization bill.
...BUT PLENTY TO SAY: And so there’s a real chance the pre-election adjournment could come as soon as the end of next week, on Sept. 21 — but likelier a week after that. One big reason for sticking around is fundraising. An avalanche of campaign cash will pass from lobbyists, advocates, trade association bosses and other special interests into the hands of incumbents at events scheduled long ago, with the expectation lawmakers would remain in town to reap the largess until at least early October. (The DCCC alone is keeping track of 184 different money events between tonight and the end of the month.)
When not slipping checks into their briefcases and handbags, lawmakers will be using the House and Senate chambers, committee rooms and East Front TV standup positions for a series of show votes, self-promoting news conferences and politically charged hearings. Citing their concerns about national defense (and egged on yesterday by Romney), House Republicans plan a vote to disarm the across-the-board spending cut trigger that 70 percent of them voted to set last summer. Senate Republicans will insist on at least one more vote on repealing the health care law. And Senate Democrats want to force a collection of votes on aspects of the job-creating agenda Obama rolled out a year ago, which has been largely ignored ever since.
TRAIL TIPS: (Money) Obama raised $114 million in August and Romney brought in $112 million, their campaigns said today. That’s essentially a fundraising draw for last month, suggesting the two will both be able to buy whatever they want in the battleground states. But the symbolic victory in the numbers goes to the president, because it’s the first time since May that he raised more than his challenger — and 50 percent more than what he had raised in either July or June. (It’s also true that Romney’s August number was his best monthly total yet.)
(California) Three of the Senate’s most prominent defense hawks, Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham and independent Joe Lieberman, will endorse Howard Berman today in his race for a San Fernando Valley congressional seat against fellow incumbent Democrat Brad Sherman. Both are on the November ballot because of the state’s new top-two-finishers primary system, and so each is eager to win over the independents and Republicans who could sway the outcome of their race — and who make up only slightly less than half the district’s population. Berman has been stressing his skills at bipartisan compromise in his campaign, and his work as the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee has afforded him openings to cut deals with the three senators, who often form a hawkish triumvirate on Armed Services on issues including nuclear weapons proliferation, human rights and arms sales to nations that harbor terrorists.
(Connecticut) The latest maneuver in Republican Linda McMahon’s increasingly aggressive push for the open Senate seat is a complaint filed with the Office of Congressional Ethics over the weekend alleging that her Democratic opponent, Chris Murphy, violated House rules when he took out a home equity loan at a bank he represented as an attorney before coming to Congress. Murphy has been considered the heavy favorite to take Joe Lieberman’s place, but since the August primary all the momentum has seemed to be with McMahon, the former pro-wrestling impresario who has spent more than $65 million combined by now on this Senate run and her first bid two years ago.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Today, politically safe House Republicans Ted Poe of Texas (64) and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming (58); yesterday, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware (49) and House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon of California (74).
EDITOR'S PICKS FROM THE CQ ROLL CALL NEWSROOM
Stopgap Funding Bill on Fast Track (CQ Today)
The House may vote as early as this week on a stopgap funding measure, a compromise aimed at allowing lawmakers to return to their campaigns without the threat of a potential government shutdown hanging over the elections. » View full articleSpending Deal Gets Green Light From Conservative Leaders (CQ Today)
Leaders of conservative Republican factions in both chambers do not plan to make trouble for the six-month stopgap spending bill House Speaker Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Reid have promised to move before the elections. » View full articleDash to Finish Line Begins (Roll Call)
After rallying their parties in Charlotte, N.C., and Tampa, Fla., Obama and Romney have begun the sprint to the end of their titanic struggle over the role of government and the president's record on the economy. » View full articleNonstop Fundraising Stretch Starts (Roll Call)
Members on both sides of the aisle and their professional fundraisers are trying to extract every available dollar from the K Street and political action community in the remaining legislative days before members shift all of their attention to the campaign trail. » View full articleSenate Candidates Who Stayed Home (Roll Call)
Sen. Claire McCaskill and former Sen. George Allen eschewed the national scene to travel in their states, seeking out audiences in smaller towns and faraway places. » View full articleLeaving Town Early (CQ Weekly)
Two more weeks. That’s the goal for an unusually early getaway from Capitol Hill, as leaders of both parties try to hold together a plan aimed at giving lawmakers extra time back home to campaign. » View full article|
| ||
No comments:
Post a Comment