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December 18, 2023
Punchbowl News Presents
Introducing Tech – our newest policy vertical. From high-profile interviews with industry influencers & policymakers to key lobbying updates, Punchbowl News Tech will be your go-to for timely technology insights.
PRESENTED BY
THE TOP
Happy Monday morning. A quick programming note: Punchbowl News is only publishing AM editions this week. We’re off next week and back with three editions a day beginning Jan. 2.
Congress’s January schedule is about to get a lot busier.
A marathon weekend of talks on a border-security plus immigration package that could unlock billions of dollars in Ukraine aid yielded significant progress but no deal, according to senators from both parties. Negotiators on both sides acknowledged Sunday night that there’s not going to be a floor vote on an agreement anytime soon.
That means Congress may have a complicated and politically thorny legislative proposal on its plate when lawmakers return to Washington in 2024 – all while they’ll be just days away from a government shutdown. We have more on that below.
GOP senators had already made clear they wouldn’t vote to advance any foreign-aid bill without seeing legislative text on the border-security and immigration provisions. On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), the lead GOP negotiator, sent a note to colleagues reiterating that Republicans aren’t feeling rushed to reach a deal this week.
The pair added that if Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer moves forward with plans to hold a procedural vote this week, “it would not succeed.”
Lankford told reporters Sunday that his letter with McConnell remained operative after three more hours of closed-door negotiations.
This is news: Lankford was calling individual GOP senators this weekend to tell them that the remaining hang-ups in the talks likely won’t be resolved before January, according to three sources familiar with the conversations. The outstanding issues in the negotiations touch on some of the most complex and controversial immigration policies, including parole and expedited removal of migrants.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), the lead Democratic negotiator, had said the group would need to release a framework by Monday in order to conceivably vote later in the week. On Sunday, Murphy suggested that wasn’t imminent and acknowledged GOP concerns about the legislative text.
“Obviously, nobody’s voting on this until they have time to review the text,” Murphy said. “Our job is to get this done as quickly as we can.”
The Senate negotiators — Lankford, Murphy and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) — have all emphasized the intricacy of immigration law and the need to constantly evaluate whether any emerging proposal would satisfy enough lawmakers in both parties and both chambers. This is another signal that the effort won’t be ready for prime time for quite a while — if it ever happens.
“We’ve got lots of issues to work through, in which there are many different ways to try and address and solve problems,” Sinema said. “And that allows us to bring the votes of both houses and both parties.”
The Senate is scheduled to hold votes on nominations this week. Schumer has already teed up votes on executive and judicial nominees.
Schumer also wants to approve roughly a dozen military promotions that are still being blocked by Republicans. This would take a considerable amount of floor time without consent.
The Senate has another must-pass bill left on its agenda, too — a short-term FAA reauthorization. The FAA’s current authorities are set to expire Dec. 31.
It’s entirely possible that Schumer could send senators home for Christmas after clearing the FAA reauthorization, knowing that a procedural vote to advance the Ukraine-Israel-Taiwan-border package will almost certainly fail.
Left-right synergy: Conservatives and progressives alike are criticizing the ongoing talks — albeit for different reasons — suggesting Senate leaders and the White House are inappropriately fast-tracking the negotiations. Both factions are taking steps to slow-walk the process.
On Sunday, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) led a group of 15 conservative senators in a letter to Senate GOP Conference Chair John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) requesting a conference-wide meeting on what they called the “rushed and secret negotiations with Democrats.”
The senators requested that the meeting take place no earlier than the week of Jan. 8. Both chambers are set to come back in session that week following the holiday recess.
It’s important to remember that many of the conservatives who signed this letter aren’t likely to support Ukraine aid. But it represents an effort to pressure their leadership to allow House Republicans to weigh in on any proposal.
Across the aisle, progressives and Hispanic lawmakers are continuing to push the White House to reject Republicans’ border demands.
Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus met virtually over the weekend with White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
During the meeting, according to two sources familiar, the lawmakers said the White House wasn’t sufficiently communicating with the CHC about the various proposals on the table. NBC News first reported on the meeting.
— Andrew Desiderio and Mica Soellner
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GOVERNING
Trump and January crunch loom on immigration, Ukraine
If a potential “border security-for-Ukraine” deal slips into January — as looks increasingly likely — then the already-fraught political calculations surrounding these negotiations will be made even tougher by Republican presidential politics and Donald Trump.
Just take a look at the January calendar.
The Senate was supposed to adjourn last week until Jan. 8. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he intends to hold a procedural vote on a foreign-aid package this week that includes billions of dollars for Ukraine, even with Republicans certain to vote no.
The House is on recess until Jan. 9. Speaker Mike Johnson has already made clear that he won’t bring members back even if Senate Republicans somehow reach an immigration and border-security deal with the White House and their Democratic colleagues.
The Iowa caucuses will be held Jan. 15, which is also Martin Luther King Jr. Day. That’s only 28 days from now.
Government funding begins running out on Jan. 19. This covers four bills — Agriculture, Energy and Water, MilCon-VA, and Transportation-HUD. The remaining eight bills expire on Feb. 2.
The New Hampshire primary is Jan. 23.
Pay attention to the GOP primary dates especially. If there’s no Senate deal this week – or even if there’s a “framework” that still needs to be fleshed out with legislative text – that means lawmakers could be voting on an agreement next month. That’s just as Republican voters begin casting their ballots for the GOP presidential nominee.
On Sunday, a group of 15 Republican senators demanded a GOP Conference meeting in January before any deal was reached. “Rushed and secret negotiations with Democrats who want an open border and who caused the current crisis will not secure the border,” the senators wrote.
Any delay is especially important given Trump’s truly abhorrent comments on undocumented immigrants on Saturday. Trump, of course, has long used incendiary and even racist comments to describe undocumented immigrants, but he’s now taking it to an even more incendiary level.
On Sunday in Reno, Nevada, Trump called the surge of migrants at the border “a military invasion” and promised to lead the “largest deportation operation in American history.”
It’s hard to see Trump backing any immigration deal, especially if Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell supports it. The same goes for Ukraine funding, another huge priority for both McConnell and President Joe Biden. Trump has said repeatedly he would end the war in Ukraine quickly.
Getting Congress to approve Ukraine aid on its own has gotten harder with every passing week. It will only get worse in January when this issue gets caught up in another government-funding debate.
January, in fact, may be the last chance for Ukraine to get more U.S. funding. Numerous members and senators have said the issue is “too important to fail.” But failure looks like a very real possibility at this point. In fact, it’s more likely than not.
Then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy refused to include any Ukraine funding in a short-term government funding bill in September, a clear sign of growing GOP opposition to more aid for the embattled ally. Johnson then pushed through a two-step CR in November that also didn’t include any Ukraine aid.
Now Ukraine is likely to become a dividing line in the Republican presidential primary. And Trump is once again on the opposite side of McConnell.
— John Bresnahan
THE VAULT
2023 was a great year for bank legislation and also, a terrible one
December is always a good time to reflect on the year in banking policy. Was it a good year for financial services legislation? Yes, we’d argue.
Was it also a terrible year? Yes.
Hear us out: We think 2023 was great for the actual development of financial policy. Overlapping crises from across the U.S. economy and the globe pushed lawmakers to weigh significant changes to the laws undergirding our financial system, whether that was the spring’s miniature banking blowup or the year-long crypto winter.
The Senate Banking Committee, chaired by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), came back to legislative life this year, holding a markup for the first time since late 2019. The result was a set of banker accountability standards that saw near-universal bipartisan support from the panel’s members. That was no small feat.
The House Financial Services Committee, led by Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), cleared dozens of bills during several markups this year. Many of those bills had bipartisan support, including legislation that would transform the legal environment for the crypto sector.
But 2023 was terrible for legislative progress. Neither banking panel saw their marquee bills get a vote in the House or Senate, let alone sent on to the president’s desk. The only partial exception was the FEND Off Fentanyl Act, which was added to the Senate’s annual defense authorization package before being stripped from the final product.
A lack of floor time has felled many bills but these financial services packages had a better shot than most. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke frequently about policy proposals coming out of Brown’s committee including cannabis banking reform and banker accountability legislation. And McHenry was about as close an ally of House Republican leadership as a lawmaker can be.
But historic dysfunction in the House ate through weeks of floor time following the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Brown told us that “chaos” affected the Senate’s ability to function, too.
“All the chaos in the House and the fact that they all acted like children kept this stuff from [happening],” Brown said. “We should have passed Ukraine [aid] in October. We should have passed Israel [aid] by now.”
“None of it’s resolved, and there just is not time on the floor,” Brown added. “I don’t like to point fingers, but this is all in the House.”
The Senate had its own problems, to be clear, including glacial funding negotiations, Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-Ala.) months-long hold on military promotions and more.
“Senate inaction is the reason,” Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) said. “Yes, we need floor time, but we’re busy. We’re sending over a lot of good bills to the Senate, and unfortunately, it’s a graveyard over there for good ideas.”
We’re broadly optimistic about the opportunities for moving policy in the first quarter of next year, thanks to unusual government funding deadlines coming up in January and February. A lot of lawmakers are too.
“You either have an expansive view of the year that’s 15 months long, or you have to acknowledge that the first quarter of next year has a hot set of opportunities to move major legislation in other vehicles,” McHenry said. That’s “traditionally how we’ve done [policy] for the last 20 years, frankly, for financial services,” he added.
But this is a pretty tight window, thanks to the general election. “My hope is that we can bring some of these things over the finish line in the limited period next year before people get very November focused,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) said.
– Brendan Pedersen
THE MONEY GAME
The House is out. But the fundraising is still on
A few fun events to point out for you this week. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) is hosting an event Tuesday at the Capital One Arena for the Madonna concert. Who doesn’t want to see Madonna?
OK, you’re a Republican but you still really want to see Madonna? No problem. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) is hosting his own event at her concert on Monday night. One ticket will run you $3,000 and two will run you $5,000.
– Jake Sherman
THE CAMPAIGN
Chris Christie’s presidential campaign is out with an ad in New Hampshire noting he is the only one running a race against former President Donald Trump. The spot also points out that Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley are both attacking each other – not Trump.
Tell It Like It Is PAC is running an ad in New Hampshire saying DeSantis and Haley are too soft on Trump.
– Jake Sherman
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Introducing Tech – our newest policy vertical. From high-profile interviews with industry influencers & policymakers to key lobbying updates, Punchbowl News Tech will be your go-to for timely technology insights.
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