News: Cloture coming soon to a chamber near you

Thursday, August 5, 2021

Cloture coming soon to a chamber near you

Aug 05, 2021

Presented by ProsperUS

With Burgess Everett and Sarah Ferris.

CLOTURE CLOCK COMING SOON — Today is looking like a potentially pivotal day for the most important story on Capitol Hill: The Senate calendar.

Democrats and Republicans are increasingly anticipating Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) could move to cut off debate on Thursday, which would set up a pivotal Saturday vote and give senators a Friday "intervening day" to go to former Sen. Mike Enzi's funeral in Wyoming. Schumer and his office have not indicated this yet, but several in-the-know Democrats confirmed that's the plan after the Senate processes more amendments on Thursday.

Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) team told Huddle that the minority leader will be travelling to Wyoming on Friday, along with a sizable group of Republican senators. There is an issue percolating about landing at the small Gillette, Wyo., airport. Sen. Cythia Lummis (R-Wyo.) told Huddle that "at least one plane" of lawmakers is headed to Enzi's funeral, but there is pressure for senators to fly into Casper and take busses for the three-hour round trip from Casper to Gillette and back, which would make for a much longer day.

Leaders and negotiators are talking through how many more amendments could see floor consideration before a final vote. The amendment calculation is both about timing and a recognition that a budget vote-a-rama is on the horizon right behind it. We're hearing increasingly pent-up angst to get out of town, although it's probably going to take a few days and may spill into next week.

What's the score? Many Republicans have said that they want to dig into the Congressional Budget Office score of the deal, which could come out today. With $550 billion in new spending, some GOP senators are looking to the CBO evaluation to assess whether the funding sources in the bill add up or if the bipartisan package will have the economic growth impacts that Democrats are touting. A Thursday CBO release could help grease the wheels for a cloture vote.

A Thursday cloture vote tees up passage over the weekend or early next week before the Senate moves on to consider the Democrats' budget resolution.

Related: Democrats prepare to rope GOP into political cliff dive over debt limit, write Caitlin Emma and Jennifer Scholtes.

CURIOUS CASE OF JERRY MORAN — Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) is the only negotiator in the bipartisan infrastructure gang who has voted twice against moving forward on the package.

Moran's backing isn't crucial to passing the bill, but colleagues on both sides of the aisle are wondering where the affable Kansan will come down on the deal he helped negotiate.

"I'm still very interested in seeing a result on a bipartisan infrastructure bill, and hope to be able to be a yes," Moran told POLITICO in an interview. "I'm going to talk to my colleagues, finish the analysis, and make a decision as to whether I believe overall this is better for the country to have it."

He faces a tangle of pressures, from Trump's threat to try and oust any Republican who supports the bill to McConnell's support of the measure (so far.)

Burgess and Marianne look at the push-and-pull Moran faces and what his Senate colleagues say about his decision making style: https://politi.co/3jvzJbQ

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PURPLE STREAK: GOVERNING FROM THE MIDDLE — House Appropriations Committee chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), a liberal firebrand, is upending expectations as she tallies up win after win by working with moderates and uniting the caucus. Democrats can only lose four votes on the floor, but she's cooked up a robust whipping operation that works both with key leaders and making endless calls to her rank and file colleagues.

As Sarah and Heather write: "The eccentric Democrat — recognizable by her brazen rhetoric, pattern-mixing attire and cropped, purple-streaked hair — isn't running the powerful committee as the hard-charging liberal she's often made out to be. Instead, she's governing from the middle."

Part of DeLauro's success — according to her chief rival in last year's chair race, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) — is that she delivered on a campaign goal they had both shared by making every Democrat feel invested in spending bills.

"Rosa is very, very hardworking and very, very focused," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said. "Intense would be a word that would not be inappropriate."

Sarah and Heather pull back the curtain on how DeLauro's relationship building within her own caucus and across the aisle, as well as her never-say-die mentality, have shaped the House spending process this year: https://politi.co/3joWn5r

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The economy is what we create, what we buy, what we need. The economy is powered by us – and it's time it worked for us. We need more bold public investment in jobs and families. We are ProsperUS. Learn more here.

GOOD MORNING! Welcome to Huddle, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Wednesday, August 5, where working towards the weekend doesn't mean anything anymore.

TUESDAY'S MOST CLICKED: You were eager to read the CQ Roll Call analysis of earmark submissions, the "Earmark Olympics," from Jennifer Shutt, Ryan Kelly and Peter Cohn.

SEEKING: WORKPLACE RIGHTS — President Joe Biden has tapped Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights, Susan Tsui Grundmann, to serve on the Federal Labor Relations Authority.

The move will leave a vacancy at the top of the independent office that oversees the dispute resolution process for employees on Capitol Hill and enforcement of the Congressional Accountability Act.

Grundman led OCWR , then called the Office of Compliance, through an overhaul in 2018 as the #MeToo movement swept through Congress and the arduous reporting and resolution process for harassment complaints came under scrutiny.

Grundman has been confirmed by the senate before. In 2009 then-President Barack Obama nominated her to chair the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, enforcing Federal merit systems in the executive branch.

INVASION EVASION? — The Jan. 6 riot has entered the midterms. Several declared House GOP candidates are facing questions about exact how much they participated in the pro-Trump rally that turned into that deadly siege.

While no candidate has been accused of violence, it's a dilemma for GOP leaders as Dems prepare to lean hard into the issue this election.

So far, NRCC chief, Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), is not ruling out whether or not the group would support candidates who attended the Jan. 6 rally. He answered a question about it at a town hall last week: "I want as many people as possible who share our values to step up and be the voice and run for office," Emmer said in a recording obtained by POLITICO.

Those candidates in question include..

— Derrick Van Orden, the GOP's prized recruit who nearly knocked out Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) in 2020. He published an Op-Ed declaring he left the pro-Trump "Stop the Steal" rally after rioters began breaking into the Capitol and that he never went inside.

— Teddy Daniels, who's running again against Democrat Rep. Matt Cartwright in Pennsylvania after losing the GOP primary last cycle. He posted a video from near the Capitol steps with the caption: "I Am Here. God Bless Our Patriots" and went on to mock police officers who testified about their experience that day.

— Tina Forte, a right-wing influencer, who's launching a long-shot GOP bid against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She took photos during the rally wearing what appears to be black body armor and then took photos displaying a white power hand gesture.

Read more from Olivia, Sarah and Ally Mutnick: https://politi.co/3xpKlxC

CANNON FODDER — Heads up, Cannonites. If you feel like the Cannon House Office Building renovation has taken precisely forever, you're not alone.

Architect of the Capitol J. Brett Blanton and the architect's inspector general, Christopher P. Failla, will testify this afternoon before the Committee on House Administration about the delays and cost overruns the Cannon project faces, citing both the Covid-19 pandemic and the security posture following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, according to advance written testimony.

Covid-19 hit the Cannon project hard, sickening workers and causing supply chain delays.

"And then, the Capitol Building breach on January 6, 2021, shut down the project for 44 days while security experts and the National Guard secured the campus. This shutdown cost the project more than $2 million," Blanton writes in his testimony.

The Cannon renewal project began in 2014 and was originally expected to cost $752.7 million, stretched over 10 years and five phases (numbered 0-4, not intuitive). Cannon, first used in 1908, is the oldest congressional office building with the exception of the Capitol. It hasn't been revitalized since the 1930s.

It's had its share of problems. The building was riddled with substantial health, environmental, safety and operational issues (like... lead in the water). Asbestos and polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which can cause adverse health effects, have both been found in Cannon during the construction process.

The projected cost is now up to $890.2 million, after more than one increase . A new Integrated Cost Schedule Risk Analysis is now underway and scheduled for completion in fall 2021, which will guide the architect on if the overall project budget will require another formal budget revision. Expect lawmakers to dig into the cost issues at the hearing.

In May 2021, the Architect of the Capitol submitted a $9.2 million supplemental funding request for Cannon costs resulting from the pandemic and Jan. 6 attacks. Failla cites "significant design changes driven by the U.S. Capitol Police," supply chain issues, worker quarentines and a lack of site access and increased safety protocols due to the pandemic as reasons for the additional funding needed in his testimony.

Blanton says that there were many lessons learned to improve scheduling and coordination with Capitol Police and the House's Chief Administrative Officer to improve the complex task of completing members' office suites once construction is finished.

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NOW CIRCULATING FOR SIGNATURES — Sen. Tom Tillis (R-N.C.) is urgently seeking signatures on a hot item, but it isn't a bill or Dear Colleague letter.

He clutched a baseball Wednesday night, looking for his own colleagues' autographs. He chased Majority Leader Chuck Schumer up the aisle in the Senate chamber, asking him to sign and searched for an empty space for Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) to squeeze in her name.

It's not a keepsake for himself.

"There's a colonel in the Marines that has been running the legislative liaison operation, and I just heard that he was looking to get some signatures on a baseball," Tillis told Huddle. "I figured since we're gonna be here, and I'm around them all, I can possibly get all 100 of them just versus a few."

He was already up to 85 signatures when he talked to Huddle last night, but as votes continued into the evening, he could be closer to the full senate roster.

RACUCUS ROSSI GOODBYE — The hottest party on Capitol Hill Wednesday was a going-way fête for Mike Rossi, chief of staff to Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.). Republican aides, floor staff and lawmakers flocked to the farewell bash, packing The Mansfield Room during a seemingly endless vote series on infrastructure amendments.

GOP Sens. Lummis, Susan Collins (Maine), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) and John Barasso (Wyo.) were among the lawmakers who made time during votes to stop by.

The sounds of celebration, roaring laughter and applause spilled out into the Ohio Clock corridor and beyond. Many young staffers seemed to make their way by following the sounds of a good time.

Delighted to have a brief escape from work, aides arrived with big smiles and enthusiasm for what must be one of the most festive gatherings the Capitol has hosted in many months, given access restrictions put in place for the pandemic and following the insurrection.

Whatever the snacks were, many attendees who had to hustle back to work took a bite to-go, wrapped in napkins or sandwiched between tiny plates.

Rossi is keeping mum about what his next move is, but he got a rousing goodbye.

CLYBURN FLEXES IN CLEVELAND — "I was going to stay right here in South Carolina minding my business until I got called stupid," Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C) told Axios Wednesday. More on Clyburn's influence in the Democratic primaries here: https://bit.ly/3Aat7Go

VAXXED AND VEXED — Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.) led nearly 20 House lawmakers calling on Capitol Attending Physician Dr. Brian P. Monahan to consider implementing the same Covid-19 vaccine and testing requirements that the Biden administration has laid out for the rest of the federal workforce.

Congress loves to exempt itself from federal labor and workforce rules.

Cleaver wants Monahan to require members and staff in the Capitol complex to either vaccinated against Covid-19 or adhere to twice-per-week testing for the virus.

Given that masking requirements have sparked shouting matches, name calling and altercations between lawmakers, it seems unlikely that this moves forward.

Pelosi punted to Monahan when asked about the proposal from 19 of her colleagues, saying "It's up to the Capitol physician," and "I think that some people have raised that."

SENATE SUNDAYS — Rare, unusual, infrequent all describe the Senate gavelling in on a Sunday. Roll Call's Chris Cioffi has historical data and some senators' frank emotional responses to toiling on what looks like could be consecutive Sundays: https://bit.ly/3s2WLus

BELITTLING BRITT — Nathan Gonzales from Inside Elections notes that Republican Alabama Senate candidate Katie Britt is already facing sexist attacks in a Senate primary that won't take place for another 10 months, all while Republicans are still celebrating electing a record number of women to the House in 2020. More on why a Senate chief of staff isn't an "assistant" here: https://bit.ly/3fAlml7

TODAY IN CONGRESS

The House meets at noon for a pro forma session.

The Senate convenes at 10 a.m. and is expected to vote at 11:30 a.m.

AROUND THE HILL

11:30 a.m. Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) hold a press conference on a bill to access 9/11 documents.

1:30 p.m. Committee on House Administration virtual hearing on oversight of the Cannon renovation.

TRIVIA

TUESDAY'S WINNER: Kevin Diestelow correctly answered that Mike Enzi was the avid fly fisherman and former senator who completed the legendary "Cutt-Slam" in 2015 by catching four cutthroat trout subspecies in their native range.

TODAY'S QUESTION from Kevin: Although Phillies fan Joe Biden's election in 2020 gave Philadelphians hope that he would throw out a ceremonial first pitch at a game soon, he would not be the first president to do so in Philadelphia. Name the first president to throw out a first pitch in Philadelphia.

The first person to correctly guess gets a mention in the next edition of Huddle. Send your answers to ktm@politico.com

GET HUDDLE emailed to your phone each morning.

Follow Katherine on Twitter @ktullymcmanus.

A message from ProsperUS:

We are ProsperUS, a coalition of movement, labor, small business, faith, and policy groups. And we demand a people-centered economy.

This is our chance, this is our moment – to finally unlock prosperity for all of us. We need housing, health care, caregiving, action on the climate crisis, and millions of good-paying jobs. We need bold public investment now.