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IN THIS EDITION

A stadium, a pay raise for lawmakers, music tourism — and gov’t funding

What’s in the CR for members — a pay raise, plus an Obamacare opt-out

Troubled Trump noms skirt Dems so far

The Vault: Hill talks reg reform, Brown gives up on noms

THE TOP

A stadium, a pay raise for lawmakers, music tourism — and gov’t funding

Happy Wednesday morning.

Oh hi, everyone. We have a CR. And House Republicans are in an uproar about what’s in it, including a pay raise for lawmakers. More on that below.

House and Senate leaders released a 1,547-page bill Tuesday evening that funds the federal government through March 14.

We’ll get into the substance of this mammoth bill in a minute. But first, let’s talk about timing for votes on this must-pass legislation. The federal government shuts down at midnight Friday night (although there’s always some wiggle room on weekends). That doesn’t leave much time for lawmakers to get this to the president’s desk.

Speaker Mike Johnson had been intent on sending the bill through the House Rules Committee. That would allow Johnson to pass the measure on the House floor with a simple majority. We have our doubts that the Rules Committee will agree given the rightward lean of the panel.

The speaker did a temperature check Tuesday with hardliners on the Rules Committee — GOP Reps. Chip Roy (Texas), Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Ralph Norman (S.C.) — to see whether they’d support a rule for the CR.

But the trio indicated they have a host of demands they’d need in exchange for doing so: adherence to the 72-hour rule for considering legislation, as well as votes on spending offsets and language restricting the sell-off of border wall materials.

Johnson hasn’t agreed to these conditions. So unless something dramatically changes, he’ll have no other choice but to bring the CR up under suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority for passage. A floor vote has yet to be scheduled, but the general consensus is that the House will take it up on Thursday. That leaves the Senate just one day to clear the measure before Friday’s midnight deadline.

Merry Christmas to everyone. This bill is a Christmas stocking full of legislative goodies designed to get votes.

That’s not unusual for a year-end piece of legislation. But it’s silly to pretend that this is a narrowly tailored spending bill. It’s not. It’s a three-month CR with a pile of other provisions going along for the ride.

The legislation does big things like overhauling pharmacy benefit managers. It also provides $100 billion in disaster relief to the hurricane-stricken Southeast. The bill sets aside $30 billion in aid for farmers.

Of interest to Wall Street, the CR contains language restricting U.S. capital investment in China. That had been a question mark ever since an initial Republican compromise dropped out of the NDAA. And as we reported earlier this month, the measure also delays the implementation of a “beneficial ownership” database designed to crack down on money laundering until 2026.

RFK Stadium will be transferred to the District of Columbia, paving the way for a new Washington Commanders stadium. In turn, the CR transfers an Air National Guard fighter squadron from D.C. to Maryland. Even the American Music Tourism Act of 2024 got a ride in this bill.

Again, this horse-trading isn’t unusual. It’s also not the way Johnson said he’d govern.

On Johnson. The speaker had two choices when it came to government funding: an omnibus or a skinny CR. We made the case that a deck-clearing omnibus was the more logical path. This would ensure Johnson and Capitol Hill could focus on Trump’s legislative agenda instead of wrestling over funding for much of the first quarter.

Johnson didn’t do a skinny CR or an omnibus. He did a CR loaded with a bunch of unrelated stuff and a few big Republican wins. Johnson had to give in to Democrats in order to squeeze billions of dollars of economic assistance for farmers into the measure

Now Johnson is taking heat from all sides over a short-term bill. The HFC is furious. GOP moderates are furious. Elon Musk doesn’t like it. Some hardliners are withholding their public support for Johnson to return as speaker next year.

What happens when you bypass committees. Johnson prides himself on being a light-handed speaker. He didn’t weigh in on the chair fights in the House Republican Steering Committee, as other speakers have in the past.

But twice in the last few weeks, Johnson has gotten involved in committees’ work products.

On the NDAA, Johnson airdropped in language barring gender-affirming care for children of service members. House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said he had no idea Johnson was doing it.

Then Johnson meddled in the Ways and Means Committee’s negotiations over a pair of trade programs that expire in 2025: the African Growth and Opportunity Act and a program granting duty-free access to the U.S. market for Haitian apparel exports.

Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) had closed in on a deal to extend both AGOA and the Haiti trade program for five years each in the CR. Johnson encouraged the negotiations but then greenlit the Haiti program’s inclusion without AGOA.

– Jake Sherman, Melanie Zanona, Brendan Pedersen, Laura Weiss and John Bresnahan

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Don’t miss: Our end-of-year special edition of The Canvass will go out later this morning. Check your inboxes and our website for the full 2024 recap as we wrap up one of the most chaotic and unproductive congressional sessions in recent memory. Plus, we look toward 2025 with predictions for the 119th Congress.

HUMAN RESOURCES

What’s in the CR for members — a pay raise, plus an Obamacare opt-out

Two provisions that directly impact lawmakers were quietly added to the CR: a pay raise and an Obamacare opt-out.

Pay raises. It’s complicated, but Congress has proactively blocked lawmakers from getting a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) since 2009. This was done by including language in spending bills specifically preventing such pay increases, although other federal employees get them.

However, the new CR includes a provision (page 15) that amends language in a previous CR that incorporated a provision from an earlier omnibus blocking any member COLA. Yes, that’s how it was done. Nothing as simple as “Members and senators will get a pay raise.”

Our friend Jack Fitzpatrick at Bloomberg Government first reported this.

Now, a lot of lawmakers have been pushing for a pay raise for years, arguing the longstanding freeze has discouraged people from running for office. Congress did create a program in 2022 allowing members to get reimbursed for lodging and meal expenses while conducting official business in D.C.

As we noted, there hasn’t been a pay increase since 2009. The annual salary for members is $174,000. That is a lot of money to average Americans — or anyone — but it’s expensive to serve in Congress too.

There’s also the argument that if members and senators don’t get paid fairly, then only rich people will run for Congress.

Here’s a good CRS report on this long-running issue. It notes that if members of Congress were getting raises also this time, their 2024 salary would be $243,300.

But the optics of Congress, an already unpopular institution, giving itself a pay bump has long been seen as politically toxic. So expect this to get a lot of attention today, particularly from conservatives already furious over the CR.

Obamacare. Also tucked into the CR is a provision allowing lawmakers to opt out of Obamacare and instead use the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Under the Affordable Care Act, lawmakers and some designated staff are required to use an Obamacare exchange instead of the FEHBP. A couple of Republicans have been trying to overturn this for years to no avail.

We’re told some key Democrats were unaware of this language until after the final CR text was released Tuesday evening. The provision wasn’t in an earlier draft of the health title of the CR that was circulating.

— John Bresnahan and Melanie Zanona

NOMS, NOMS, NOMS

Troubled Trump noms skirt Dems so far

President-elect Donald Trump’s most controversial Cabinet picks are largely bypassing meetings with leading Senate Democrats as they begin navigating the confirmation process. These hot-button selections, who face major questions over past statements, actions and policy positions, are looking to shore up their GOP support before searching for Democratic backing — which they may never get anyway.

Consider this: Defense Department nominee Pete Hegseth hasn’t met with Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.). Department of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hasn’t met with Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). FBI nominee Kash Patel hasn’t met with Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). And Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, hasn’t yet met with DNI nominee Tulsi Gabbard.

There’s no guarantee any of these picks get any Democratic votes at all.

Trump’s already withdrawn two picks so far — former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) for DOJ and Chad Chronister for DEA — because they couldn’t get enough Republican support. And the Trump transition team knows there’s little-to-no chance that this quartet gets any Democratic support. So Senate Republicans are still at the point of figuring out whether they can get these nominees across the finish line without relying on Democrats.

Warner and Reed told us they’re aiming to meet with Gabbard and Hegseth respectively in January. Wyden and Durbin said they hadn’t heard from the Kennedy or Patel teams yet, but also want to organize a sitdown.

It’s clear that the Trump transition team isn’t prioritizing Democratic meetings during the opening rounds on the Hill.

Senate Republican leadership, however, tried to point the finger at Democrats. Incoming Majority Leader John Thune said Trump’s nominees “are doing their best to try and make contact with Democrats.”

“But I had a conversation with one earlier this morning who hasn’t had any success doing that just yet,” Thune told us on Tuesday after meeting with Pam Bondi, Trump’s attorney general nominee. “So hopefully the Democrats will entertain our nominees and give them an opportunity to make their case.”

That’s not to say that all of Trump’s Cabinet picks are ignoring Democrats. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), a vulnerable Democrat up for reelection in 2026, met with Gabbard on Tuesday to hear her thoughts on intelligence matters. Gabbard will also meet with Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who has signaled his openness to voting for Trump nominees.

Another in-cycle Democrat, Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chair Gary Peters (D-Mich.), met with DHS nominee Kristi Noem.

Apart from the Trump nominees dominating the headlines, there are a number of more bipartisan picks that are already making the rounds with Democrats.

Treasury secretary nominee Scott Bessent will meet today with Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Brooke Rollins, Trump’s choice for agriculture secretary, will meet today with Sens. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Fetterman and Bennet.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Trump’s selection for secretary of state, has met with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), who’ll be ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee in 2025. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) has also met with a number of Democrats.

“I’ve known most of these people for a while, been here now 14 years,” Rubio told us. “But obviously we’ll have to get through the hearing and see how the vote goes.”

— Max Cohen

… AND THERE’S MORE

Job moves. Sen.-elect David McCormick (R-Pa.) has hired James Cunningham to be his deputy chief of staff. Cunningham co-authored McCormick’s book.

Laura Atcheson will be McCormick’s legislative director. She worked for Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) as a senior counsel and subcommittee staff director on Senate Finance. Mark Isakowitz, a veteran Capitol Hill hand who has been at Google, is McCormick’s chief of staff.

News: Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Greg Casar (Texas) and Maxwell Frost (Fla.) will serve as co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC. Jayapal, the outgoing chair of the CPC, is staying on as a CPC PAC leader while Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) are departing.

Raskin will serve on the 2026 CPC PAC executive board, along with Democratic Reps. Lloyd Doggett (Texas) Chuy García (Ill.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Jill Tokuda (Hawaii), Robert Garcia (Calif.) and Rep.-elect Lateefah Simon (Calif.).

— Max Cohen

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