| | | | | |  | | By Elana Schor | Presented by Facebook | With help from Chris Suellentrop BUT GETTING TO 50 VOTES IS — Senators don't often get unsolicited advice from their counterparts across the Capitol. But 10 days ago, nearly 100 House Democrats made Majority Leader Chuck Schumer a doozy of a request. They called on Schumer's caucus "to do what it takes to pass an agenda that meets the needs of everyday people." More precisely, the House Democrats declared that progress toward a $15 minimum wage, "voting rights, climate and environmental justice, gun violence prevention, immigration reform, worker protections, LGBTQ equality, and reforming our criminal-legal system will likely be further obstructed — unless we end the filibuster."
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks on the phone while arriving to the U.S. Capitol. | Getty Images | There's one very large problem with their proposal: Senate Democrats are not united on a legislative vehicle that can advance even one of those priorities, much less all of them. As one senator told our Burgess Everett and Marianne LeVine, who today dug into the problems befalling the party's House-passed voting rights and elections bill , "task one" is finding a path to get all 50 Democratic caucus members on board. "Task two, go out and see if there's any path towards ending the filibuster over this." On issue after issue, the Senate is still stuck on task one. No matter how much the House Democratic majority would prefer to talk about task two. On the elections bill, both Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and — as our reporters scooped last month — several members of the Congressional Black Caucus would like to see Democrats shift their attention to a bill named for the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) that focuses solely on voting rights. That narrower legislation is more targeted than some House Democrats would prefer. But it has a strong chance to command unified Democratic support, and it even won the backing of one GOP senator during the previous Congress. When it comes to other issues, the picture is even bleaker for filibuster abolitionists. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) is still trying to find a workable way forward in the upper chamber on legislation to curb gun violence. And even though nearly every Democrat campaigns on raising the minimum wage, Senate Democrats still haven't coalesced around a single proposal after eight of them voted against a $15 hourly rate in March. Senators from both parties are talking about immigration , but they're a long way from a consensus bill that can win over centrist Democrats like Manchin and Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema as well as House progressives who'd rather take a bigger swing. On LGBTQ rights, the outlook is a little closer to unity but still not conclusive: Manchin is the lone Democratic senator who hasn't cosponsored the party's preferred bill. There is a noticeable gap between the aspirations of filibuster critics and reality: If and when Schumer tries to quash decades of precedent governing the 60-vote threshold, he'll do it for high-profile legislation where he's confident he can win 50 votes (with Vice President Kamala Harris' tie-breaking vote ready to go). Right now, legislation boasting both Democratic unity and the necessary political momentum doesn't exist. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. We just happened to notice that the Delaware Blue Hens' football team continued its undefeated season this weekend, and is just a game away from the FCS championship game in the Covid-altered spring season. Wonder if there is an advance person in Washington making plans for a certain Delaware alum in case they reach the final game. Reach out with news, tips and ideas for us at eschor@politico.com and rrayasam@politico.com, or on Twitter at @eschor and @renurayasam.
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– Reforming Section 230 | | | | | | — Biden reverses on refugee cap reversal: Weeks after abandoning the number, Biden once again set a 62,500 cap on refugees allowed into the United States for the rest of this fiscal year , the White House announced today. The number delivers on an increase Biden initially promised in February, though still falls short of what he pledged during the campaign. The White House said several weeks ago it would keep the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. at a historic low of 15,000 — a ceiling first implemented by President Donald Trump. — Top general drops opposition to change in sexual assault policy: Gen. Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stopped short of endorsing the changes recommended by an independent review panel. But in an interview with The Associated Press and CNN, Milley said he is open to considering them because the problem of sexual assault in the military has persisted despite other efforts to solve it. — Biden administration picks Cordray to oversee federal student loans: The Biden administration is planning to install Richard Cordray, the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as the head of the nation's $1.6 trillion portfolio of federal student loans , according to several sources familiar with the decision. The selection of Cordray, who previously was attorney general of Ohio and ran unsuccessfully to be governor, is a major victory for progressives who have been calling on the Biden administration to take more aggressive action on student loans and for-profit colleges. — Facebook oversight board to issue ruling on Trump case Wednesday: The ruling, which Facebook has said will be binding, could usher in Trump's return to the world's biggest social network — or cut him off permanently from yet another major online platform. — New York, New Jersey, Connecticut ending most restrictions on May 19: The unified approach — announced separately today by the three governors who had previously appeared together (albeit virtually) at Covid-era news conferences — comes on the heels of a public spat between New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
| | | | SUBSCRIBE TO "THE RECAST" TODAY: Power is shifting in Washington and in communities across the country. More people are demanding a seat at the table, insisting that politics is personal and not all policy is equitable. The Recast is a twice-weekly newsletter that explores the changing power dynamics in Washington and breaks down how race and identity are recasting politics and policy in America. Get fresh insights, scoops and dispatches on this crucial intersection from across the country and hear critical new voices that challenge business as usual. Don't miss out, SUBSCRIBE . Thank you to our sponsor, Intel. | | | | | | | | IMPROV CLASS — Nightly editor Chris Suellentrop emails: My mom almost died a couple years ago from a sepsis infection that cascaded through her organs. During the early months of the pandemic, I thought often of the intensive-care unit doctors who saved her life — mostly because our government's Covid response looked nothing like their desperate, improvisational blend of analysis and experimentation. I was reminded of this framework while reading Michael Lewis' new book about the pandemic, The Premonition . It comes out Tuesday. In broad strokes, The Premonition is the story of a group of people inside our government who were thinking the same thing, and how no one listened to them. No, Mom, they weren't thinking about you. Sorry. But they did believe that we needed a pandemic response managed in the spirit of an ICU. In this case, the patient was the entire country. Waiting for peer-reviewed data to confirm a supposition was not "following the science"; in a pandemic, it was negligence. People died while the government waited for the Covid data. Deaths are a lagging indicator, we have heard throughout the pandemic. But it turns out that data is, too. Charity Dean, the heroine of this fable, is a recognizable Lewis archetype: the Cassandra ignored by insiders who are blinded by institutional biases and human folly. Early in her career, as the public health officer for California's Santa Barbara County, she prevented a meningitis outbreak on a college campus by trusting her gut and her eyes over the evidence on a faulty lab test. She shut down the entire Greek system before a single case was confirmed. "That decision is not supported by the data," the CDC tells her. Dean, who was trained as a surgeon, describes the difference between her approach and the CDC's this way: "They wanted to learn from this meningitis outbreak, and I wanted to stop it. … They wanted to observe it as if it were a science experiment on how meningitis moves through a college campus. And I was like, 'Are you kidding me: a kid just lost his feet.'" When Covid-19 emerged, Dean was the assistant director of the California Department of Public Health. There, she encounters The Premonition's other hero, Carter Mecher, an ICU doctor. Carter Mecher was a senior VA medical adviser when the pandemic began. He was also the leading voice on an email thread of public health experts urging the government to take swift action and introduce social-distancing measures before the data shows up and it's too late. We know now that Dean and Mecher were ignored. Lewis points to why: The CDC's timid insistence on certainty. The CDC is "a peacetime institution in a wartime environment," Mecher says. It's a university, not an ICU. Almost a year and a half into the pandemic, that hasn't changed. After being battered for moving too slowly to shut the country down, the CDC is now being torched for being too cautious during reopening. We're still in a crisis. Children aren't being educated. Women are dropping out of the workforce. Young adults are deferring college. These people can't wait for the perfect answer. As Lewis writes, channeling Mecher, "There might never be a perfect answer." There might not even be a good answer. When my mom was sick, there were also no good answers. Treating her failing heart would worsen the bleeding inside her gut, for example. They put her on a vent. They took her off a vent. The doctors relied on their experience and their training, and we trusted them, in part because they were honest about the risks of their actions during a dangerous and uncertain time. And sometimes, they let us decide after explaining why neither choice was easy. It's not too late to start treating the country the same way.
| | | |   | | | | | | OF TOT AND POT — Welcome to Ontario, Ore., home of the tater tot — and now, a massive marijuana market for customers crossing the Idaho border. In the latest POLITICO Dispatch, Natalie Fertig explains how the tiny town border town of 11,000 people became one of America's cannabis capitals — and what it means for other towns as weed legalization spreads.
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| A TRULY EPIC FIGHT — Apple is facing off in court against the biggest threat to its $2 trillion tech empire — not the governments of the U.S. or Europe, but a video game company based in the town of Cary, N.C., Leah Nylen writes. Epic Games, the maker of the popular video game Fortnite, has captured the attention of regulators in Washington and Brussels with an antitrust lawsuit that could upend how the iPhone-maker does business. The federal civil trial that started today in Oakland, Calif., focuses on Apple's control over its App Store — the only way app developers can reach the world's 1.5 billion iPhone or iPad users. The trial began three days after the European Commission charged Apple with abusing its control of the App Store to harm rival music streaming services. Epic's case is the first case to reach a courtroom. Epic argues that Apple has illegally tied access to the store to the use of its payment system, which takes a 30 percent commission out of most sales. The game developer has also challenged Apple's refusal to allow the Epic Game Store, which sells hundreds of games, onto iPhones and iPads.
| | | GIVING COVAX A BOOST — Moderna will supply COVAX with up to 500 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine starting at the end of the year , the U.S. drugmaker announced today, just as Sweden pledged it would send 1 million doses via the vaccine-sharing mechanism. Under the deal, Moderna will work with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to supply 34 million doses to COVAX — a mechanism established with the World Health Organization and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to provide vaccines for low- and middle-income countries — in late 2021. The vaccines will be offered at Moderna's "lowest tiered price," and Gavi will be able purchase an additional 466 million doses in 2022.
| | | | JOIN TUESDAY FOR A CONVERSATION ON SMALL BUSINESSES AFTER COVID-19: About one in six small businesses in the U.S. closed their doors since the pandemic began. The ones that remained open are getting by with fewer employees after laying off workers or a hiring freeze. What is ahead for small businesses in 2021 as they try to weather the ongoing economic uncertainty? And how does President Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package intend to support small-business owners? Join POLITICO for a virtual conversation with White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein and Joyce Beatty, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, on what small businesses need to survive and thrive beyond the Covid economic crisis. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | | | 6 percent The share of employers who expect a return to a full in-office work week, according to a new survey of return-to-office decision-makers by Reset Work . Of employers that have decided to return to the office in some form, 73 percent expect to welcome employees back to the office by the end of September. | | | | | LOCKED OUT OF OZ — In today's Global Translations newsletter, Ryan Heath writes on the world's most extreme border policy: How would you like to spend five years in jail or pay a $51,000 fine for trying to enter your own country? That's what 9,000 Australians in India are now facing if they attempt to come home during India's horrific Covid outbreak. The new border policy, announced under the country's Biosecurity Act without public consultation, may have ramifications for what it means to be a citizen in a democracy. After all, a democratic government's fundamental allegiance is to its own citizens. But if you can't return home as a citizen, what can you do? While many countries have placed restrictions on foreign arrivals during Covid, Kim Rubenstein, a citizenship law expert from the University of Canberra, told Global Translations that "no other democratic country has placed such extreme measures on its citizens" — most of whom are already banned from leaving the country. The policy was announced without detailed justification at midnight Saturday and is already in force. The national Cabinet, which met on Friday, did not discuss the matter and Prime Minister Scott Morrison has not faced reporters since the decision was made. By comparison, the United States is still allowing Americans and humanitarian workers to enter from India, though restrictions on others attempting to enter the U.S. from India will begin Tuesday.
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