The Archive

IN THIS EDITION

The Senate will jam the House — again

Culture Wars Part 2?

Inside the DCCC dues report

The Vault: Dems grapple with a nasty FDIC report

THE TOP

The Senate will jam the House — again

Happy Wednesday morning.

It’s going to happen again. The Senate is about to jam the House once more — this time on the five-year FAA reauthorization bill.

Regardless of when it ultimately gets done and what might hitch a ride on it, the House will have little choice but to swallow whatever the Senate passes to reauthorize the nation’s aviation programs.

House GOP leaders know they’ll have to move quickly on the must-pass FAA bill when they receive it from the Senate, which could be well after the Friday night deadline. In the meantime, House and Senate leaders are working to ensure it doesn’t turn into a “Christmas tree” of sorts for unrelated legislation.

The House has already been steamrolled as part of this messy, months-long process.

You’ll recall that last summer, the House rejected an effort to add new flight slots at Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport. But a slot expansion was included in the Senate bill anyway. It’s unclear whether senators will get a separate vote on this issue before sending the FAA bill to the House.

There’s been some criticism in House Republican leadership circles that Speaker Mike Johnson didn’t pass a short-term FAA patch to try to head off the Senate’s bill. Instead, Johnson will probably get flak from conservatives that members are being forced to swallow a gigantic bill while jammed up against a deadline. Which sounds familiar.

The latest: It’s clear now that the Senate will try to plow through to finish the FAA reauthorization, with or without a time agreement.

Under regular order, the Senate wouldn’t be able to pass it until the weekend, well after the Friday night deadline. Leadership in both parties ran separate hotlines late Tuesday night to see if it was possible to clinch an agreement to finish by Friday.

The Democratic hotline listed only two amendment votes — one on the DCA slots issue and another on facial recognition technology — while the GOP hotline included a mix of germane and non-germane amendments.

The next procedural hurdle comes on Thursday when the Senate will hold the first of two required cloture votes. Senators demanding amendment votes could try to deny cloture if there isn’t an agreement before then.

If there’s no time agreement before Friday night, the Senate could try to quickly pass a short-term extension of the FAA’s authority. Of course, all it takes is one objection to derail that.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer cited “progress” Tuesday on the germane amendments — and indeed, there was tangible movement. Negotiators were able to resolve a dispute over a provision about automatic refunds and made nine additional noncontroversial tweaks to the bill.

As we noted last week, Sen. Ted Cruz, the GOP floor manager for the bill, has adopted a posture that’s unusual for the Texas Republican — urging colleagues to cooperate and not throw up roadblocks. Cruz doubled down Tuesday as he tries to notch a bipartisan win ahead of his reelection bid in November.

“This is a bill that incorporates hundreds of member priorities from both sides of the aisle,” Cruz said as he emerged from a GOP leadership meeting, which is another odd place for Cruz to be. “I’m certainly open to non-germane amendments, but it’s not clear that those will move forward without objections from other members.”

Of course, the difficult part here is the pile of non-germane bipartisan amendments. There’s the Kids Online Safety Act. An effort to fund the Affordable Connectivity Program. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. And many more.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune warned that allowing votes on unrelated bills would be a slippery slope.

“If one gets added, there will be a whole bunch more that will put holds on the bill,” Thune said. “It’s unlikely anything non-germane makes it because of that.”

The challenge here for the leadership in both parties is that there are already a few senators who have said they won’t consent to a time agreement if their non-germane amendments don’t get a vote.

If that holds, it almost certainly guarantees the Senate won’t finish this up before Friday night. The alternative is to find a list of amendment votes that all 100 senators can live with. As Thune noted, this could open up the floodgates and make an agreement impossible.

Also: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has paused her efforts to oust Johnson. She made demands — which we scooped — and Johnson says he’s working on considering some of them. Johnson denies he is negotiating with Greene.

Look at Johnson’s eye roll when we told him Greene wanted answers from him soon.

— Andrew Desiderio and Jake Sherman

Tonight: Punchbowl News is partnering with the Atlantic Council for its annual Distinguished Leadership Awards ceremony and the Trust for the National Mall’s Ball for the Mall.

We’re excited to support both events as they serve as an extension of our political community. Connect with our team members on the ground. If you see our dome pin, say hello!

APPROPRIATIONS DRAMA

Culture Wars Part 2?

In the talks between Speaker Mike Johnson and GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.), the hardline conservatives have sought to cut off funding for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into former President Donald Trump.

Johnson told reporters that it’s something “we’re looking very intently at,” while Trump signaled he likes the idea on Tuesday night.

And brand new House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) has already declared that nonprofits won’t be eligible for earmarks, a move Democrats say is aimed toward barring funding for LBGTQ-related projects and programs. Cole took over the Appropriations panel last month from the retiring Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas).

Which led us to wonder if House Republicans will use the FY2025 spending bills to advance the same culture war provisions as they did last year. These were aimed at diversity, abortion, climate change, transgender and LBGTQ funding, among other issues.

Will this happen again on the FY2025 spending bills — unclear.

“I don’t know. We’re going to let the committee work its will,” Cole told us in an interview earlier this week. Cole said he has yet to have this discussion with his subcommittee chairs — aka “the cardinals” — or party leaders.

Asked whether his move to cut off earmarks for nonprofits was intended to mollify conservatives, Cole downplayed the controversy.

“There’s almost 1,000 of those projects. It’s a lot easier to vet what a state government is doing,” Cole asserted of his ban on earmarks for nonprofits.

The culture war provisions were strongly opposed by Democrats, the Senate and the White House. But Johnson and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy let it happen in order to mollify the House Freedom Caucus and GOP hardliners. That helped derail the appropriations process in the House. And few of those provisions made it into the final bills passed by Congress this year.

Cole acknowledged that the FY2025 spending bills will be drafted at the spending level agreed to in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which will upset conservatives. McCarthy — again under pressure from the right — wanted to spend $100 billion less even after he cut a deal with President Joe Biden. That didn’t happen as the Senate and the White House refused to go along.

For their part, Democrats are strongly opposed to any repeat of last year’s ideological clashes over the spending bills.

“My hope is that we will not go down that path again,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, in a statement.

House Appropriations cardinals also believe that some of these culture war fights can be avoided this year.

“I’m sure some of them will make it, but I hope the majority of them won’t,” said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who chairs the Interior subcommittee. “If they’re put on there, they will be put on with the knowledge they’ll be taken off.”

“The difference is we have a different chairman. Tom Cole will run things a little differently,” added Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), who chairs the Transportation-HUD subcommittee. “There will be a push to do a lot of that.”

Cole hopes to start marking up bills in subcommittees by late May or early June. He’d like to move all 12 bills out of committee by the August recess. Cole was set to meet with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise this week to talk about the floor schedule.

Yet Cole and all the appropriators know they won’t finish the process by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. A continuing resolution will be passed before then so lawmakers can go home for the elections. The goal is to finish off everything in a lame-duck session.

— John Bresnahan

HOUSE DEMOCRATS

Inside the DCCC dues report

At Punchbowl News, we love few things more than checking out how much House members are chipping into their campaign committees. Good news: We got our hands on the latest DCCC dues report. Before we dig in, a quick disclaimer: These numbers are up to date as of the end of March. Here are our main takeaways:

Jeffries leads the way: Unsurprisingly, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is on top of the charts in the caucus money game. The Democratic leader has paid $3 million in dues, raised $140 million and has raised and given $7 million to Frontline and Red-to-Blue candidates.

The dues overachievers: In addition to Jeffries, a further 17 members have paid more than 100% of their dues.

The overachievers are Minority Whip Katherine Clark, Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, Vice Chair Ted Lieu, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Whip James Clyburn, DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene, Assistant Leader Joe Neguse, Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.) and Democratic Reps. Joyce Beatty (Ohio), Ami Bera (Calif.), Jim Himes (Conn.), Don Beyer (Va.), Derek Kilmer (Wash.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (Ill.) Scott Peters (Calif.), David Trone (Md.) and Gregory Meeks (N.Y.).

A further 24 members have paid exactly 100% of their dues. This is an increase from December, when just nine had.

The slackers: As of the end of March, 29 non-Frontline members paid exactly nothing in dues. However, this doesn’t reflect Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) first-ever contribution to the DCCC that was reported in April.

Everyone else: Seventy-eight members have paid between 1% and 50% of their dues. A further 29 have paid between 51% and 99% of their dues allocations.

Frontliners, the most vulnerable DCCC-designated incumbents, aren’t required to pay dues. But one frontliner — Congressional Black Caucus Chair Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) — has still chipped in with $15,000 to the DCCC.

— Max Cohen

The Vault: Dems grapple with a nasty FDIC report

Congressional Democrats are in a tough spot.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chair Martin Gruenberg is under significant political pressure from Republicans to resign. That’s thanks to an independent third-party report that documented significant problems with the agency’s workplace culture and anti-harassment policies, as well as the chair’s own temper.

Gruenberg is — incidentally! — a crucial vote supporting the Biden administration’s financial policy agenda. And while key Democratic lawmakers say they’ll continue to support the embattled regulator, there are already signs of fracture among rank-and-file members.

Start with supporters: Top financial services Democrats like Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Rep. Maxine Waters (Calif.) are all backing Gruenberg.

Warren told us Tuesday night that Gruenberg was “clearly committed to accepting the recommendations of the independent investigation and to make changes at the FDIC.” The Massachusetts Democrat added “The problems with the FDIC date back to Democratic and Republican administrations going back many, many years.”

In an interview, Waters acknowledged some “legitimate criticism about management overall for some period of time.” But asked if Gruenberg should resign, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee replied “Oh no. No, no, no.”

There are problems: We were interviewing Waters Tuesday night in the Capitol basement when Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.) approached the California Democrat to inform her he’d called for Gruenberg to resign minutes before. Foster is the top Democrat of the House Financial Services subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy.

Foster told Waters the allegations reported out by independent investigators at Cleary Gottlieb were “really bad.” Waters said: “Sounds like more mismanagement to me than misbehavior.”

Foster replied that “personal misbehavior” was “not what put it over the threshold for me.”

Foster isn’t alone among Democrats with concerns, publicly or privately. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) suggested that Gruenberg would face credibility issues if he continued atop the FDIC:

Capitol Hill needs more time to digest the report in full. The majority of Democrats we asked for comment last night deferred, saying they hadn’t had a chance to read the investigation yet.

This isn’t likely to get better with time or closer inspection. “The summaries are not very pretty,” Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) said.

— Brendan Pedersen

THE CAMPAIGN

Here’s what happened in key Indiana Republicans’ primaries on Tuesday:

Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) won the GOP Senate primary. Banks, who lost his bid to be House majority whip last year, ran unopposed and is the huge favorite to succeed retiring Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.). Braun, in turn, won the gubernatorial primary.

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) barely won her primary in the 5th District. Spartz — a consistent thorn in the side of Republican leadership — went back on her promise not to seek reelection. Spartz squeaked out her victory by only six points over challenger Chuck Goodrich. This is an R +11 district.

Former Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) triumphed in the primary in his comeback bid in 3rd District.

State Sen. Mark Messmer beat former Rep. John Hostettler (R-Ind.) — who drew heat for his anti-Israel stances — in the 8th District primary.

Former Indianapolis mayoral candidate Jefferson Shreve won the 6th District GOP primary.

— Max Cohen

MOMENTS

CLIPS