The Archive

IN THIS EDITION

Johnson could be the only leader who wants a CR

Inside the House Dem leadership elections

The Vault: Judiciary plunges into credit cards

Congress eyes moves on the farm bill

CLF’s post-election take

THE TOP

Johnson could be the only leader who wants a CR

Happy Tuesday morning.

It seems like Speaker Mike Johnson is the only congressional leader who wants to put a government funding deadline in the first quarter of Donald Trump’s presidency. Yet that doesn’t mean Washington won’t ultimately go along with punting the spending fight into 2025.

Senate Republicans aren’t thrilled with Johnson’s stated preference for a CR. Incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune delicately noted that “there are different points of view.” Thune didn’t directly criticize the idea of a stopgap funding bill but said the Senate may have no other choice.

“If that’s what they think they have the capacity to move, we’ll have to adapt to that,” Thune told us. “We’ll see eventually what the traffic will bear, but that seems to be what the speaker is coming down on.”

As of last week, top House and Senate appropriators were making the case for clearing the decks on FY2025 funding, which would guarantee that Trump wouldn’t have to deal with a spending fight at the outset of his administration. Trump could instead focus on his “100-day agenda.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the incoming Appropriations Committee chair, said it’s “very much in the interest of the new administration” for this to be resolved before January.

Johnson’s view is that kicking funding into early next year will give Trump a chance to put his stamp on any spending deal. Perhaps more importantly, Johnson avoids the optics of having to cut a deal with President Joe Biden and Democrats on a massive end-of-year spending package right ahead of a speakership floor vote. Johnson World believes that a year-long spending package running through Sept. 30 won’t sell in the House GOP.

So at least from Johnson’s perspective, this is a smart political play. Of course, if Trump were to ask Congress for an omnibus, Johnson would have plenty of cover to maneuver. So far, Trump hasn’t publicly weighed in on his preference.

Unsurprisingly, defense hawks don’t like the move. The Pentagon loathes CRs, with top Defense Department officials arguing that it interferes with their ability to run projects and programs effectively. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who will chair the Armed Services Committee next year, said this about a CR: “We need to stop that at all costs.”

There’s also the White House’s emergency disaster relief funding request, which totals nearly $100 billion. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), whose state was ravaged by deadly Hurricanes Milton and Helene, said he wants it to be attached to a “largely clean” CR.

“It’s only the beginning,” Tillis said of the federal aid request for the Tarheel State. “This is the best they could do based on the stated needs.”

The hardline House Freedom Caucus, which is usually reflexively opposed to any CR, could potentially come around to supporting a stopgap bill. Some HFC members have been advocating for a March CR in anticipation of another Trump administration. The group has yet to take a formal position, and — like many Republicans in Washington — seems to be waiting to take its cues from Trump.

Earmarks out: Passage of a CR means no earmarks. That’s especially bad news for appropriators, senior lawmakers in the House and Senate, and members in swing districts or states who will lose out millions of dollars — sometimes tens or hundreds of millions of dollars — worth of earmarks.

In the House bills alone, there are thousands of “community funded projects” that won’t get into a CR. For instance, the earmarks for the Transportation-HUD bill alone run 193 pages. You can see the other House Appropriations Committee-approved earmarks here. The Senate has its own earmarks that won’t get included in any CR.

If Trump is serious about huge spending cuts in discretionary funding, whose earmarks survive and how will lawmakers who get shut out react?

GOP plays hardball on judges: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is usually able to take the mundane procedural steps of setting up votes on judicial nominees with little problem. But on Monday night, when Republicans learned that Schumer would be filing cloture on several nominees, they tried to make it painful.

Instead of allowing Schumer to schedule nomination votes via unanimous consent, Republicans objected and forced roll-call votes on each maneuver. So a process that usually takes a few minutes ended up lasting more than five hours, with senators casting votes until around midnight.

Schumer is under pressure from progressives to confirm as many judicial nominees as possible before Democrats lose their Senate majority. At the same time, Republicans are trying to make it as difficult as possible for Schumer to close the year out on a high note.

As of last night, the Democratic-controlled Senate has confirmed 216 of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees. Trump had 234 with a GOP-run Senate in his first term. Democrats think they can surpass that number during the lame duck.

Also: Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) attended the House Freedom Caucus meeting on Monday. Gaetz was thanking members for their support on his embattled nomination for attorney general. House conservatives are among the few Republicans in either chamber that have supported him for the role.

One more thing: Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, said she has read the full Gaetz report and believes it should be released to the Senate and the public.

— Andrew Desiderio, Melanie Zanona, John Bresnahan, Jake Sherman and Mica Soellner

NEW POWER PLAYERS: Join Punchbowl News CEO Anna Palmer for a conversation with Senator-elect John Curtis (R-Utah) on Tuesday, Dec. 3 at 9 a.m. ET. They’ll discuss news of the day and bipartisanship in the lame-duck session and new Congress. Afterward, Sam Mar, senior adviser of Arnold Ventures, will join Anna for a fireside chat. RSVP here!

HOUSE DEMS

Inside the House Dem leadership elections

Staring down another two years in the minority, House Democrats will gather Tuesday and reelect their leaders to another term atop leadership.

Despite failing to gain control of the chamber, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark and Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar are facing no challenges to their roles. As we’ve reported, rank-and-file lawmakers are largely pleased with their leaders, concluding that House Democrats did the best they could in a tough political environment. The anger and frustration from rank-and-file Democrats is aimed at the top of the ticket, not their own leaders.

While there’s no drama atop the Democratic Caucus, there are a number of contested races lower down the rungs.

DPCC chair: As we reported on Monday, freshman Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) is challenging Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) to become the House Democrats’ top messaging chief.

Dingell is playing up her experience as a swing-state representative, an important perspective following GOP success in 2024.

Crockett is highlighting her social media skills and has touted her work leading Democratic messaging in Texas.

This race is being closely watched, and some senior Democrats are raising eyebrows at a freshman running for a higher leadership position. Crockett has countered that Dingell has already served two terms as co-chair and it is time for a fresh perspective.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) is expected to win one of the open DPCC co-chair slots.

Battleground leadership representative: Reps. Kim Schrier (D-Wash.), Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) and Susie Lee (D-Nev.) are running to represent Frontline and Red-to-Blue members at the leadership table. Lee spearheaded the creation of the new position in 2022. The role is open since the current chair, Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), is leaving to run for governor.

DCCC chair: Jeffries has the sole power to appoint the next DCCC chair. We’re told by Democratic aides that Jeffries isn’t focusing on the campaign chair position until the newly elected leadership team is installed.

But we wouldn’t be shocked if Jeffries turned to DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene to lead the organization for a second straight term. DelBene is well-liked, and members largely are pleased with the way the DCCC helped candidates outrun the top of the ticket in November.

New Dem chair: Reps. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) and Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) are vying to lead the New Democrat Coalition. This election is expected to take place on Wednesday.

— Max Cohen and Mica Soellner

The Vault: Judiciary plunges into credit cards

The banking sector is going to deal with something today that it’s been trying to avoid all year long — a Senate hearing about credit card competition. It’s just not coming from the Banking Committee.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will convene this morning for a long-awaited hearing on what Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) calls the Visa-Mastercard “duopoly.” Durbin has a bill with Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) that would require card companies to allow retailers another choice of payment network besides Visa or Mastercard to lower “swipe fees.” The financial sector argues that retailers aren’t likely to pass along the savings.

Under Durbin, Judiciary has sought jurisdiction over credit cards on antitrust grounds. Visa and Mastercard are the largest players by far in the credit card space, and the retail sector believes the two companies have used their market share to keep swipe fees unfairly high.

Banks are already on the offensive. Richard Hunt, executive chair of the Electronic Payments Coalition, dismissed the hearing last week as a “desperate, 11th-hour attempt to deliver on promises made to some of their largest donors.” And lobbyists are circulating letters from airports around the country — including multiple airports from Sen. Chuck Grassley’s native Iowa — signaling opposition to the CCCA. The airline industry is deeply enmeshed in the credit card market.

The Senate Banking Committee hasn’t really touched this issue, though outgoing Chair Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) signaled some openness to credit card reform in late 2023.

Other members of the banking panel made clear this week some toes are being stepped on, albeit politely.

“We clearly have jurisdiction on this particular issue,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said, though it was “not a problem” for another committee to weigh in. “The expertise that you find within the financial services committee, and the number of individuals that would have an interest in that… would probably be more invited to a Banking Committee hearing,” Rounds added.

But Durbin and Marshall have been banging this drum for a while. Advocates for credit card reform often push hardest during the lame duck, when the annual defense authorization offers the (distant) hope of financial policy riders. Durbin told reporters Monday night he’d push for the CCCA to receive an amendment vote in the NDAA this year, too.

But for today, the Judiciary hearing is the main event. The witnesses slated to testify are interesting, including Mastercard President Linda Kirkpatrick and Bill Sheedy, a senior adviser to Visa CEO Ryan McInerney.

Keep an eye on the entire dais. Credit card reform is one of Washington’s most interesting lobbying fights because it pits the banking and retail lobby against each other. As a result, lawmakers are often loath to take a public position on it. Today’s hearing will be an interesting peek at where senators’ priorities seem to lie.

Correction: An earlier version of this story referred to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) as the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is currently the ranking member.

— Brendan Pedersen

LAME DUCK

Congress eyes moves on the farm bill

Senate Agriculture Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) is making a last-ditch effort to get a farm bill done by the end of the year.

Stabenow released text of her version of the farm bill this week, embracing some aspects of the House GOP’s legislation while largely sticking to the framework she laid out in the spring. Stabenow’s bill also comes after pressure from her Democratic colleagues that the retiring senator needed to put something on the table.

Time is running out, though. Stabenow said she had to see “willingness” from her Republican colleagues to pass a bill before agreeing to a committee markup. Stabenow plans to talk with the four corners about the path forward, she said during a pen-and-pad briefing with reporters.

“Now it’s up to my Republican colleagues to respond,” Stabenow said.

The top Republican on the panel, Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), already bashed Stabenow’s bill, calling it a partisan proposal that was released too late.

Not all Democrats fell behind Stabenow’s proposal, either. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) told us he’s “still reviewing the bill.”

The House: House Democrats have long been privately expressing frustration toward Stabenow, though she put out an extensive framework earlier this year.

Several frontline Democrats also raised concerns about the possibility of kicking the farm bill to next year when President-elect Donald Trump could have more influence over a Republican-written bill.

The current bill, which passed the committee in May, was backed by four House Democrats. However, Ranking Member David Scott (D-Ga.) and the majority of House Democrats have raised issues with the GOP-led bill over proposed cuts to SNAP and other social safety net programs. Those could be even larger under Trump and a GOP-run 119th Congress.

House Agriculture Committee Chair GT Thompson (R-Pa.) has been meeting with Democrats on the House floor to discuss his willingness to move a bill.

“Every day that goes by makes it harder for our farmers and ranchers,” Thompson told us.

Thompson will meet with Speaker Mike Johnson this week, though a firm date has not been chosen. He and Stabenow held a call earlier this month to talk about a lame-duck strategy.

Johnson is under pressure by the majority of his conference to put a farm bill on the floor. But the speaker is expected to run into issues with his right flank, which is unlikely to back the measure, meaning he’ll need Democratic support to pass the package.

— Samantha Handler and Mica Soellner

THE CAMPAIGN

CLF’s post-election take

House Republicans had a paper-thin majority going into the election. Democratic lawmakers and candidates outraised and outspent their GOP counterparts. The entity that, in many ways, kept House Republicans afloat was the Congressional Leadership Fund, run by longtime president Dan Conston.

We got our hands on a post-election donor memo from the Congressional Leadership Fund that broke down how they did it. The memo is worth a read.

Here are some stats that jumped out to us:

— Per Conston, “the average Democrat incumbent raised $6 million versus $2.4 million for the average Republican challenger – $3.6 million less.” Despite this, Republicans are on track to flip five Democratic seats.

— For GOP incumbents, the picture was rosier. Conston wrote that Republican incumbents in key races raised an average of $5.7 million and Democratic challengers raised $5.9 million.

— Conston is also touting that in the top 20 high-spending House races, CLF “provided on average over 50% of the GOP’s broadcast TV presence” in the races. In Rep.-elect Ryan Mackenzie’s (R-Pa.) win over Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), CLF says its ads “represented 72% of the GOP’s share of voice.”

— In the memo, Conston said that Democrats invested $26.5 million in a group of nine Republican-held seats that President-elect Donald Trump won by 1% or more in 2020. Republicans won all nine of these seats and only spent $15.8 million in doing so.

— CLF also “significantly increased our streaming budget to $37 million,” Conston wrote, reflecting a wider shift in advertising away from traditional linear broadcast spots.

— Max Cohen

MOMENTS

CLIPS