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April 2, 2024
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THE TOP
Schumer on defense as fight to replace McConnell heats up
Happy Tuesday morning.
Today, we’re bringing you our second installment of the Leader Look. This time, we’re focusing on the top senators — Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Both face their own unique challenges in the weeks and months ahead, with control of the chamber hanging in the balance and the Senate GOP leadership race picking up speed.
Chuck Schumer: The Senate majority leader has a number of difficult decisions to make — and sooner than you may think.
Most immediately, the New York Democrat will have to navigate the tricky politics of a Senate impeachment trial. The House is slated to send its impeachment articles against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate next week, triggering the trial process.
As we’ve written, Schumer can quickly dispose of the impeachment articles if Democrats stick together on a vote to bypass the trial. Dismissing the impeachment charges requires only a simple majority, and it would ensure that the Senate doesn’t have to spend several days or weeks on a trial whose outcome is predetermined. Conservative Senate GOP hardliners and House Republicans will yell, though.
Next up: Legislation on TikTok, taxes, railway safety, cannabis banking, executive pay clawbacks and kids’ online safety could all be in play, too.
Senate Republicans will have to decide whether to cooperate on any of these legislative issues, particularly those that could boost Democratic incumbents. If Republicans choose to filibuster, Schumer could hold “show” votes designed to highlight GOP intransigence while giving vulnerable Democrats a chance to publicly support the measures.
The Senate might also be forced to return to the issue of Ukraine aid. If Speaker Mike Johnson’s foreign aid pitch is successful and gets significant Democratic support, it will be hard for Schumer to ignore any House-passed bill that includes Ukraine funding, even if it’s far different than what the Senate approved. Johnson has signaled his proposal would convert U.S. aid to Ukraine into a loan while attaching energy provisions and the REPO Act. But it’s unclear whether this will pass the House.
Schumer will also have to shepherd through a few must-pass items in the short term. This includes FISA reauthorization, which expires on April 19, and FAA reauthorization, which expires on May 10. There’s also the likely supplemental spending package to address the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster in Baltimore.
On top of that, Schumer will have to grapple with the ongoing backlash to his calls for new elections in Israel and the replacement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Schumer avoided scrutinizing the Netanyahu government for several weeks while members of his party were speaking out against Israel’s military operations in Gaza.
And as Israel contemplates a full-scale invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah — a move the White House opposes — some Democratic senators are threatening to block weapons sales if President Joe Biden can’t get Netanyahu to change course.
Mitch McConnell: Entering the final stretch of his 17-plus year tenure as Senate GOP leader, McConnell finds himself in an awkward spot. Both of his potential successors are telegraphing that they’ll implement significant changes to the way the Republican Conference does business. This can all be viewed as an implicit criticism of McConnell’s leadership style.
Yet the 82-year-old GOP leader has some unfinished business too. Most importantly, McConnell wants to see Congress approve new aid for Ukraine.
McConnell is pulling out all the stops here. That includes openly calling on Johnson to take up and pass the $95 billion Senate bill while implicitly chiding the speaker for the delay. Any longtime McConnell watcher knows that the Kentucky Republican rarely calls out a GOP speaker like this.
But this time is different. McConnell, a Russia hawk and an acolyte of Reagan-era foreign policy doctrine, is watching his party grow increasingly isolationist under the control of former President Donald Trump.
The Senate GOP Conference has changed dramatically in recent years as McConnell has seen Trump-aligned Republicans replace his fellow defense hawks as they retired. And McConnell now has precious little time to put his mark on a lasting national security debate that has split his party.
Case in point: During a radio interview Monday on WHAS in Louisville, Ky., McConnell said he’ll be spending his remaining days in leadership “fighting back against the isolationist movement in my own party.” McConnell brought up the Ukraine fight unprompted and lamented that more and more Republicans “are heading in that direction” on foreign policy.
Fundraising: The fundraising war between the two sides is in full swing as well. Democrats lead in cash-on-hand, but they also have far more seats to defend.
The DSCC has raked in $93.5 million through the end of February and is sitting on nearly $32 million. The Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC took in $83.5 million during 2023 and had $61.5 million in cash.
Meanwhile, the NRSC raised almost $102 million through Feb. 29 and has $24.8 million in the bank. The McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund raised $37.1 million last year and has $35 million in cash.
— Andrew Desiderio
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BRIDGE UPDATE
FSK Bridge supplemental decision expected this week
News: The Biden administration is slated to decide on a package to help rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore prior to the president’s visit there this week.
President Joe Biden will travel to Baltimore on Friday, just 10 days after the cargo ship Dali slammed into the bridge, sending the structure into the Patapsco River while killing six workers.
The House and Senate are slated to return to Washington next week, and this issue will be toward the top of the agenda, along with renewing FISA, passing aid to Ukraine and renewing the FAA’s authority.
Senior White House officials have told us that they’re still determining the best way to get money to Charm City. The Biden administration sent a domestic-focused supplemental spending request to Capitol Hill in October, but Congress never acted on it.
Top Hill aides say they expect the White House to detail its funding request by the time lawmakers return to Washington next week. But the administration is adamant that no decisions have been made as of yet.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on WHAS in Kentucky Monday that the “federal government will step up” and pay for the “lion’s share of” repairs for the bridge in Baltimore. McConnell likened the forthcoming congressional response to those for hurricanes and other natural disasters.
McConnell’s buy-in will be critical here, but it’ll take several additional GOP votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster.
— Jake Sherman and Andrew Desiderio
2024 ISSUES
House Dems try to make Florida ground zero for abortion
House Democrats will hold a high-profile event in Florida today on protecting abortion access. It will mark the start of a six-month campaign to mobilize voters in the Sunshine State ahead of the November election.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will headline what Democrats are calling a “field hearing” in Broward County, meeting with Florida women who have been impacted by the state’s restrictive abortion laws.
Jeffries will be joined by Florida Democratic Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Maxwell Frost, Darren Soto, Jared Moskowitz and Kathy Castor, as well as Reps. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
“The next six months are going to be brutal,” Wasserman Schultz told us in an interview Monday. “The consequence of the November election is not going to just affect our voters, it’s going to affect voters across the south.”
The hearing comes a day after the Florida Supreme Court upheld a 15-week abortion ban in the state, clearing the way for a six-week ban to go into effect May 1.
At the same time, the state’s high court will allow a proposed amendment on the November ballot that would enshrine abortion rights in the Florida constitution.
Democrats won big from capitalizing on abortion access in the 2022 midterms — the same year the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and triggered a wave of state-led abortion bans.
Statewide ballot measures to enshrine and protect abortion rights have also been successful in places like Kentucky, Kansas, Ohio and Michigan.
Several other states are seeking to put similar initiatives on the November ballot that would amend state constitutions to protect abortion access.
Democrats are hoping that the issue will again help drive voter turnout across the country — even potentially making GOP-leaning Florida competitive in the state’s Senate race.
At today’s hearing, Kildee will discuss how Michigan successfully enshrined abortion rights into the state’s constitution in 2022, according to prepared remarks obtained by Punchbowl News.
The proposed amendment in Florida needs 60% support to pass. If successful, the proposal would permit abortions in the state until “viability” or about 24 weeks.
— Mica Soellner
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The ‘ineffective’ speaker
Nearly three-quarters of K Street leaders say Mike Johnson is ineffective as speaker, our recent survey of downtowners found. Notably, just 24% of Republicans who responded to The Canvass K Street survey think Johnson is good at his job.
The survey was conducted March 4-22 in partnership with independent public affairs firm, LSG, just before Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) introduced a motion to vacate Johnson as punishment for pushing through the FY2024 spending bill with Democrats’ help.
The House GOP has struggled to get much done due to its razor-thin majority and an unruly right flank. Republicans will soon command a meager one-vote House majority as more GOP lawmakers leave Congress for retirement or other cushy jobs.
With several must-pass pieces of legislation coming down the pike, Johnson will certainly have to turn to Democrats again to get things done. That is sure to further anger House conservatives.
Despite his indecisive leadership, Johnson is much more popular than his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). But K Street’s perception of Johnson’s effectiveness has dropped since January, when 38% of K Street leaders said he was effective.
Want to take part in The Canvass? Our survey provides anonymous monthly insights from top Capitol Hill staffers and K Street leaders on key issues facing Washington. Sign up here if you work on K Street. Click here to sign up if you’re a senior congressional staffer.
— Robert O’Shaughnessy
… AND THERE’S MORE
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has an upcoming evening event in Dallas on April 12. On the host list: Tommy Hicks Jr., the former co-chair of the RNC, and Arthur Schwartz, a longtime Republican insider with ties to former President Donald Trump. The fundraiser is at Schwartz’s home.
Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) is the leading candidate to be the next governor of Indiana. But he does have primary opponents. Brad Chambers is positioning himself as being a Reagan Republican and invokes former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels in his spot, which is running in Indianapolis. Chambers was the state’s secretary of commerce.
Downtown Download: The Writers Guild of America, West, lobbied on a host of issues related to artificial intelligence. Through Forscey, PLLC, WGA lobbied on “developing and advocating on behalf of legislation the use and application of artificial intelligence by the private sector” and “legislation to limit the use and application of artificial intelligence by employers”
— Jake Sherman
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