The Archive

IN THIS EDITION

The CR isn’t out yet – and Johnson is already getting heat

Connolly, Craig and Huffman win Dem committee posts

House AI report pleads for R&D grants

SPECIAL EDITION

The CR isn’t out yet – and Johnson is already getting heat

After days of back-and-forth negotiations, Congress is on the verge of a deal for a three-month government-funding bill, although it’s not quite final yet.

The proposed legislation is quite expansive.

Not only does it extend government funding until March 14, but it also sets aside money for farmers, overhauls how pharmacy benefit managers operate, extends a number of health-related programs, sends $100 billion to help the hurricane-stricken Southeast, transfers Robert F. Kennedy Stadium from the federal government to the District of Columbia, extends a program for duty-free imports of Haitian textiles and apparel into the United States and reauthorizes and funds the nation’s workforce programs. And there’s more.

Speaker Mike Johnson promised to avoid Christmas-season omnibus spending bills. Yet here we are, eight days before Christmas and three days before the government funding deadline, and Congress is considering a massive spending bill with a host of unrelated measures attached.

And in a surprise to absolutely no one, Johnson is coming under withering criticism from rank-and-file Republicans over the package.

Johnson is getting it from all sides: middle-of-the-road Republicans, a committee chair and conservatives.

During a closed-door meeting in the Capitol this morning, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), a moderate, said that the CR has been hashed out behind closed doors with little input from rank-and-file Republicans. Lawler said you cannot call this bill a skinny CR when a whole “Christmas tree” of policies got added to it.

Republicans are incredibly peeved that a whole host of Democratic provisions got added to the CR, while the package seems silent on GOP demands. Freedom Caucus Member Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) called it a “total dumpster fire.”

Johnson said the legislation was put together with the input of committee chairs. However, Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, then chimed in during the private meeting to say that the assessment was “not true.” Johnson said he would agree to disagree.

Nerves are raw with Ways and Means members after Johnson included the Haiti trade program in the stopgap without also including a renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which helps the economies of sub-Saharan African countries.

The reality is that Johnson had to accede to a host of Democratic demands because he needs their votes. Several senior House Republican leadership sources told us that more than 100 GOP lawmakers are likely to vote against the bill.

During a press conference, Johnson defended his decision to deviate from a clean CR, blaming “acts of God” for why GOP leaders needed to attach add-ons like disaster aid and farm assistance to the package.

Timing. As of last night, Johnson said he was intent on giving lawmakers 72 hours to read the bill before a vote. But this morning, Johnson was non-committal, telling Republicans behind closed doors that he will make a decision on vote timing after the legislation is filed.

Johnson said he’s considering putting the bill through the House Rules Committee, which would allow him to pass it on the floor with a simple majority. But we doubt Johnson can pass the bill through Rules, given its hardline conservative makeup.

The vote count. If the bill heads to the floor under suspension of the rules, Johnson will need two-thirds of those present and voting to pass it through the House.

We asked Johnson whether he’s confident he can get a majority of his own conference to support the CR – a key internal metric for the speaker. Johnson said he “certainly hopes” that’s the case.

On whether he was worried about any political fallout from the CR, Johnson said: “I’m not worried about the speaker vote. We’re governing. Everybody knows we have difficult circumstances.”

– Jake Sherman and Melanie Zanona

THE POWER

Connolly, Craig and Huffman win Dem committee posts

Reps. Gerry Connolly (Va.), Angie Craig (Minn.) and Jared Huffman (Calif.) all won ranking-member posts on House committees today, bringing to an end a surprisingly turbulent post-election period for the Democratic Caucus.

It was also a show of strength by the Democratic leadership, which was able to make changes at key committee posts by essentially forcing out older members or putting in their preferred candidates. The intergenerational conflicts were striking.

In the most high-profile race, Connolly handily defeated Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) by a 131-84 margin. The Virginia Democrat, who is being treated for esophageal cancer, had twice run for the ranking member post on Oversight and lost. So he had a lot at stake here.

Despite losing to Connolly in the Steering Committee vote, Ocasio-Cortez pressed ahead with a full Democratic Caucus tally. The 35-year-old AOC — an icon among progressives – believed she had a better chance to win in that forum than Steering, which is dominated by the Democratic leadership and its allies.

But Connolly had the support of Democratic leaders and a number of senior members, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Connolly was able to ride that to victory.

Part of Connolly’s pitch involved talking about the number of House Republicans who wanted AOC to win, according to sources in the room.

The Agriculture Committee contest was also widely scrutinized, although for different reasons. Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), the current ranking member, has long faced questions over his health and ability to carry out the job. The Congressional Black Caucus, which normally strongly backs Black members in committee fights, didn’t endorse Scott after he failed to show up for a candidate forum.

House Democratic leaders backed Craig, who challenged Scott.

But Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.), who is more senior on Agriculture than Craig, also wanted the post. Craig won 121-91.

Craig focused her pitch on being a Frontliner who has successfully represented a rural district as a Democrat. Craig also highlighted her role as being the only Midwestern Democrat to lead a committee.

“You better bet I had a map in front of them as they took that vote showing them that there’s not a single ranking member outside of the coast in this country and now there will be,” Craig told reporters.

Stansbury dropped out of the race for Natural Resources ranker after the caucus meeting began today. She lost the steering recommendation to Huffman on Monday.

Huffman said he’s prepared to fight the incoming Trump administration and Republicans through his post when it comes to climate policy and fossil fuels.

“You never stop trying to find common ground, but we got to have clear eyes about the fact that we have huge differences,” Huffman told reporters.

Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar congratulated the winners and challengers, adding that healthy competition is part of the caucus’ “organizational process.”

“We’re the Democratic caucus,” Aguilar said at his weekly news conference. “There are different ideas and viewpoints within the caucus, but we’re moving forward and this is part of our internal process. We will now populate committees and get ready for the 119th Congress.”

– John Bresnahan and Mica Soellner

CONGRESSIONAL INTELLIGENCE

House AI report pleads for R&D grants

The long-awaited report from the bipartisan House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence urges Congress to support grants for basic research and development in the field.

The recommendation — one of 89 in the 273-page report — reflects the conclusion from the report’s authors that the private sector doesn’t have the commercial incentives to invest in key areas like “national security, public health, weather prediction, and other societal needs.”

Here’s more from the report, which got signoff from all members of the task force:

Advocates of AI grants in Congress have also sometimes bemoaned what they characterize as a lack of commitment to R&D investments by their colleagues.

The push for grants also comes alongside the recognition in the report that, while the private sector does the lion’s share of R&D, the money is also “heavily concentrated in a few large companies.”

The task force estimates federal R&D spending on AI to be $2.9 billion. Industry executives have worried that President-elect Donald Trump might not be committed to that level of funding.

Overall, the report recommends building on existing regulation when possible to tackle AI and an “incremental” approach to regulation, rather than a comprehensive set of rules or new regulatory bodies. The focus should be on the highest-risk use of algorithmic systems, the report said.

Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.), the chair of the task force, said the report “balances the very important job of mitigating the potential harms of artificial intelligence… with the need to ensure that America remains the place where cutting edge artificial intelligence is developed.”

The task force was launched in February. Topics in the report include privacy, civil rights, intellectual property, detection of fake content and energy.

Obernolte also said that, while the report doesn’t mention high-skilled immigration as a way to bolster the AI workforce, the task force “broadly believed” in its importance.

— Ben Brody