| | | | |  | | By Katherine Tully-McManus | Presented by Mastercard | With an assist from Connor O'Brien
|  Senate Armed Services Chair Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and ranking member Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) will be back in Washington on Oct. 11 to start debate on the NDAA. They might not have much company. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) | Getty Images | NO OCTOBER SURPRISES — That sound you hear is cars peeling out for the airport after votes. The short term spending bill should be en route to the White House by this afternoon and Capitol Hill will empty out until after the midterm elections. House passage of the stopgap measure is expected to be low-drama and in plenty of time to avert a government shutdown this weekend. And with that checked off the to-do list, it is time to hit the campaign trail. The Senate is already gone. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Shumer (D-N.Y.) announced that the planned two-week senate session in October was scrapped, allowing incumbents to stay home and campaign. NDAA punted, sort of: Senate leadership did strike a deal to officially start debate on the National Defense Authorization Act on Oct. 11, with just a bare bones group of lawmakers expected in attendance. But there won't be a final vote until after the midterms. Senate Armed Services Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) had pushed for floor time for the must-pass legislation in September or October. The NDAA is a bill that Congress rarely neglects – lawmakers are on a six-decade-long streak for enacting the sweeping defense policy legislation. "I don't know what the endgame's going to be," said Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top Armed Services Committee Republican. "I know that what we're going to do when we come back on the 11th...we get on the bill. "In fact, very likely Jack Reed and I will be the only two that will be here on the 11th and 12th," he said. Once the Senate acts, both chambers still have to reconcile their two versions of the bill, adding to the lame duck to-do list. Schumer: "Proceeding to the NDAA will save us valuable time and enable us to get more done," Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday afternoon. "But members should be prepared for an extremely — underline extremely — busy agenda in the last two months of this Congress."
| | | | SUBSCRIBE TO POWER SWITCH: The energy landscape is profoundly transforming. Power Switch is a daily newsletter that unlocks the most important stories driving the energy sector and the political forces shaping critical decisions about your energy future, from production to storage, distribution to consumption. Don't miss out on Power Switch, your guide to the politics of energy transformation in America and around the world. SUBSCRIBE TODAY. | | | | | TGIF! Welcome to Huddle, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Friday, Sept. 30, where we got our hopes up about the Capitol Hill Halloween dog parade, only for October to be scrapped. HUDDLE MOST READ: Ex-staffer's unauthorized book about Jan. 6 committee rankles members, from Jacqueline Alemany and Josh Dawsey at The Washington Post SPOTLIGHT ON NEVADA AND GEORGIA — Both Democratic and Republican campaign chiefs battling for control of the Senate are both laser focused on Georgia and Nevada.
- "I feel more comfortable about — or I feel good about — the trajectory that we're seeing in Arizona and New Hampshire," said Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) who leads Dems midterm efforts.
- "If you look at the polls, Nevada and Georgia are the two logical ones" Republicans can pick up, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, the GOP's campaign chair, said.
Democrats' have a wishlist and then a so-called Core Four. On the wishlist are pickups in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. But the four core battleground senators are Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.
But Cortez Masto and Warnock's races, as Burgess and Natalie Allison write, are campaigns keeping Democrats up at night. Be running up that hill: "You're climbing a hill if you're a Democrat running in Georgia," said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). Cortez Masto doesn't see her state's past as prologue, necessarily. "Nevada is always competitive," she said. "It's a swing state." Burgess and Natalie dive deep into the dynamics that make Nevada and Georgia strong contenders for the GOP to flip and where Democrats best pickup opportunities lay: ONTO THE OMNIBUS — The stopgap spending bill isn't the end of the road. The spending quandary will rear its head again in mid-December, but talks (at least about future talks) are already underway. Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) talked with ranking member Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) on Thursday, even before the final passage of the stopgap, to talk about the omnibus spending bill for fiscal 2023. Shelby said the continuing resolution gives the negotiators breathing room. "We're gonna have a little time to do it," he told reporters. At the staff level, work toward agreement on fiscal 2023 spending is ongoing (if not linear.) "They're working all the time and you know getting here and there behind the scenes are two steps forward, three steps backwards, sideways, you know," Shelby said. There's already talk about disaster aid for Florida and possibly Puerto Rico and Alaska being possibly wrapped into the massive spending bill that will be taken up during the lame duck session.
| | | | A message from Mastercard: See what's possible when you partner with Mastercard. Learn More. | | | MANCHIN'S MIDTERM RACE RATINGS — Move over, Steve Shepard – Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is rating midterm races. He likes the Democrats' chances of keeping the Senate. "I think we pick up one. If not Pennsylvania, I really think Ohio. I'm rating Ohio better than Pennsylvania," Manchin told Burgess on Thursday. He says Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) is a friend and noted the similarities in their constituencies. Manchin is predicting a 51-49 Democratic majority next year. "I just hope it's not 50-50, that's all," he said. Burgess has more on Manchin's midterm crystal ball. STORM ETHICS — The road to a House Ethics inquiry could be paved with good intentions. That's why the Committee on House Administration and the House Ethics Committee put out a joint memo for offices with guidance for staff and members hoping to help storm-stricken communities. The move was driven by interest: "Several offices have contacted the Committee on House Administration, the Communications Standards Commission, and the Committee on Ethics to inquire about the extent to which official resources may be used to help those impacted by Hurricanes Fiona and Ian," according to the memo. Highlights: Members and staff may not use official resources to solicit anything for charities and members and staff may solicit for charities in their personal capacities only. Franking: Emails, social media posts and official website updates can be used to provide info on relief efforts coordinated by federal, state, or local government to constituents in a state where an emergency has been declared. Referrals or links to organizations whose main purpose is soliciting "goods, funds or services on behalf of individuals or organizations" is against House rules. Check yourself ( aka read the whole memo) before you wreck yourself.
| | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | LOBSTER FEUD BOILS OVER — "As Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) tries to defend his seat in Maine's highly competitive second district, a new player has entered the ring: the state's iconic red crustacean," writes Garrett Downs. Crack into this story of campaign finance and lobster drama. QUICK LINKS DeSantis, Once a 'No' on Storm Aid, Petitions a President He's Bashed, by Matt Flegenheimer at The New York Times Justices shield spouses' work from potential conflict of interest disclosures , from Hailey Fuchs, Josh Gerstein and Peter S. Canellos Jackson set to make Supreme Court debut in brief ceremony by Mark Sherman at The Associated Press Cornyn: GOP Senate wouldn't freeze judge vacancies but will use 'leverage' on Biden, by Todd J. Gillman at The Dallas Morning News 'Boring white guys' are out in a Pennsylvania Senate race focused on personality, from Jonathan Tamari and Julia Terruso at The Philadelphia Inquirer TRANSITIONS Michael W. Reynolds is now a senior public policy advisor at Baker Donelson in the government relations and public policy group. He was previously deputy policy director and team lead for aviation for the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Kyle Smithwick started Wednesday as the Deputy Chief Oversight Counsel on the House Financial Services Committee after working for the House Judiciary Committee the past few years. Sruthi Prabhu is now SVP on the federal relations team at Bank of America. She previously was an adviser for Rep. Trey Hollingsworth (R-Ind.). Corey Jacobson is leaving his legislative director role in Rep. Ted Lieu's (D-Calif.) office after eight and a half years on Capitol Hill. Jacobson, a Henry Waxman alum and Navy reservist, is headed out on military leave.
| | | | A message from Mastercard:   | | | TODAY IN CONGRESS The House convenes at 9 a.m. and is expected to vote midday on the continuing resolution and a bill on 9/11 families. The Senate convenes at 8:55 a.m. for a pro forma session. AROUND THE HILL 11 a.m. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) holds her weekly press conference. (Studio A) | | |
THURSDAY'S WINNER: Tom Daffron correctly answered that Sen. Jay Rockafeller's (D-W.Va.) father-in-law was Sen. Charles Percy (R-Ill.).
TODAY'S QUESTION from Tom: To whom is the following quote attributed? And to which election was the person referring?: "If we had known we were going to win control of the Senate," he said, "we'd have run better candidates." 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
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