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PRESENTED BY

BY JOHN BRESNAHAN, ANNA PALMER AND JAKE SHERMAN
WITH MAX COHEN AND CHRISTIAN HALL

THE TOP

Good Monday morning and happy November.

Late Sunday, we got a note from a House Democratic leadership source that said this:

We have made extensive progress on Rx drugs and other key initiatives which were not included in the text posted to Rules on Thursday.  At this point, we will need additional time to craft language and get final agreement with all parties involved. Therefore, Rules will not be meeting tomorrow on the updated Build Back Better Act text.  More updates to come. We still intend to vote as early as possible this week.

Translation: Democrats are still working on their reconciliation bill and they don’t know when it’s going to be done. They can’t get the process started today in the House as the leadership would’ve liked, so they’ll get back to us when they can start. There’s a huge push to get this done by the end of the week. The odds of that happening right now are improving, but far from certain.

Here’s the bottom line: The reconciliation bill is still, on Nov. 1, very much a moving target. 

→ Besides the prescription drug pricing issue, there is still discussion over Medicare expansion, a key priority for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Sanders and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) were negotiating on the issue throughout the weekend.

→ Immigration remains unresolved as well. This is a topic that’s not getting nearly enough attention. Three House Democrats — Reps. Chuy Garcia (Ill.), Lou Correa (Calif.) and Adriano Espaillat (N.Y.) — have vowed to oppose both the reconciliation package and the bipartisan infrastructure bill unless immigration-related provisions — including a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, TPS holders and other groups — is added to the Build Back Better Act. The problem, of course, is that the Senate parliamentarian has already ruled those out on two occasions. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) have been working on a “Plan C” for the parliamentarian, but it’s unclear when that ruling could be issued.

Democratic leaders could try to add the immigration provisions to the House version of the reconciliation package and then let it get stripped out on the Senate side, but that could make moderates — who are already getting hit by Republicans over the problems at the U.S.-Mexico border — face a politically tough vote. Democrats have a problem here that needs a resolution.

→ And then there’s the Congressional Budget Office score, or lack thereof. With the legislative language still being drafted, there’s no way to get a score on the budgetary impact of the bill. So there’s a good chance the House may vote on BBB — a multi-trillion dollar bill — without any official scoring.

We say all this because you should take any talk about timing with a pound of salt — maybe a truckload of salt. Once Democrats finalize a deal and get it into legislative text, it will still take time to prepare for floor consideration. This a momentous vote with huge political stakes, so Speaker Nancy Pelosi, her leadership team and the White House are going to want to have everything in order before they move to the floor.

Members are going to want time to read the bill, sift through the text, etc. Some lawmakers will want as much as for as long as 72 hours. 

And, of course, the most important element here is a thumbs up from Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) on whatever comes out of all these negotiations. They have been unwilling or unable to give their OK so far.

Playing out in the background will be Tuesday’s Virginia gubernatorial election. If Republican Glenn Youngkin beats Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe, there’ll be a host of House Democrats who may not be willing to take a tough vote for a president with 42 percent approval ratings. It may be short sighted, but members of Congress aren’t always logical.

But passing the reconciliation package will clear the path for a House vote on the $1 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure bill. That has been stalled for months thanks to opposition from progressives, led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). Jayapal and the Congressional Progressive Caucus handed Pelosi an embarrassing setback last week on the infrastructure legislation.

Yet if Pelosi is able to get the reconciliation package through the House this week, coupled with quick passage of the infrastructure bill, that would be a huge win for the speaker.

One thing to watch — If the reconciliation package is approved by the House and then Pelosi turns around and brings up the infrastructure bill for a floor vote right away, Democrats may lose any possible GOP support, they privately acknowledge. So they’re back to a three-vote margin with no room for error. This seems like a real possibility.

So, to reiterate, let’s separate the signal from the tremendous amount of noise: What you need to see to know if Democrats are close is:

→ Manchin, Sinema and progressives endorsing the same piece of legislation. Not a framework. They all need to be saying “yes” to the same legislative text.

→ The House needs to go to Rules to amend what’s already been done by House panels and set up floor debate.

→ If more than three Democrats are opposed to the reconciliation bill, Pelosi has problems. 

A few other things to think about: 

→ Bill Hoagland, who ran the Senate Budget Committee for many years, makes a good point here. The BBB will end up back in the House around Thanksgiving because the Senate will make some changes, either in the Byrd process or by the vote-a-rama. To be honest, we were thinking this could drag into December all along.

Government funding runs out on Dec. 3. And the Treasury Department is scheduled to hit the debt limit on Dec. 3, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. No one believes that’s the actual date that Treasury will run out of borrowing authority, but until Treasury changes it, that’s the date. Please remember that there’s been no discussion of adding debt-limit language to this reconciliation package. It can be done in the Senate if and when it gets the reconciliation legislation, but no one is talking about doing that over there either. 

Yellen told WaPo’s Jeff Stein Monday that she is OK with lifting the debt limit via reconciliation. 

→ Also: Here’s a donor memo from the Republican Governors Association’s David Rexrode ahead of the Virginia and New Jersey elections Tuesday. Here’s a bite from it:

In Virginia, Republicans haven’t won a statewide contest in 12 years. Joe Biden won Virginia in 2020 by nearly half a million votes which was 10%. Tim Kaine was re-elected to the US Senate by 16% in 2018, and Republicans have lost their congressional and state legislative majorities over the last decade. The fact that this is a jump ball the day before the election, in a state that has shifted so dramatically to the left over the last decade, should be a wakeup call to every Democrat on the ballot in 2022. In New Jersey, Joe Biden won in 2020 by 16%, and just four years ago, Phil Murphy won by 14%. New Jersey remains one of the bluest states in America, yet on the night before election day, several polls show this as a margin-of-error race with incumbent Governor Phil Murphy sitting below 50% on the ballot.

HILL x PENTAGON

Senate Republicans will push for action on the NDAA

Senate Republicans will press their Democratic counterparts this week on passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, the annual defense policy law that’s been renewed every year since 1961.

Led by Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, ranking member of the Senate Armed Service Committee, Senate Republicans will press Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on the issue during a Tuesday press conference. GOP senators will also discuss Afghanistan during that presser.

If the Senate doesn’t take up the NDAA this week — and there’s no sign at this point it’s going to — this will be the third latest the chamber has ever begun consideration of the measure. The Senate Armed Service Committee passed it’s version of the NDAA in July, but Schumer hasn’t brought it to the floor yet. The House has already voted out its version of NDAA.

Senate Democrats counter that they have begun working with the GOP to try to figure out the floor process for the bill, which could take as long as two weeks to complete. 

“The chair and ranking member have been working together to identify amendments for a floor process for NDAA, which is routine communication,” said a Senate Democratic aide working on the issue. “To move the process forward, Dems ran a hotline last week. Republicans have not.” (A hotline tests support for a bill or amendments among senators.)

The big challenge is the overall Pentagon budget this year, as well as U.S. policy in hotspots such as Afghanistan, China, Iran and North Korea. The Senate Armed Services Committee voted to boost defense spending by $24 billion, which is in line with what the House approved. Progressives strongly oppose this increase, but following the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and with growing “great power” competition with China and Russia, many lawmakers in both parties are eager to push more money for defense.

The big problem for Schumer here is the calendar. This Senate is in session this week, out next week for Veterans’ Day, then in one more week before it recesses for Thanksgiving. Schumer is also going to need at least a week of floor time if and when the House passes the Democrats’ reconciliation package. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the White House are pressing for that vote this week, yet it’s still up in the air. If it does happen, Schumer will move to take that reconciliation measure up as quickly as possible. Then he can move to NDAA and other pressing legislative issues. But that means December is more likely for NDAA consideration.

Of course, the NDAA only authorizes more defense spending. Congress still has to actually approve more money. The four leaders on the House and Senate Appropriations panels are meeting this week to try to begin hashing out an overall spending deal. Government funding runs out on Dec. 3.

Republicans are calling for an increase in defense spending equal to that for social programs, while Democrats are pressing for more on social programs. The two sides are billions of dollars apart heading into Tuesday’s initial discussion.

HELPING HAND

Airbnb will offer Hill fellows free housing

OK, this is cool. Airbnb is launching a program to provide free housing to fellows from various Capitol Hill minority groups. The groups participating include ​​the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.

As we all know, housing in D.C. is expensive. Hill jobs don’t pay a ton of money. So certain kinds of people — read wealthy — end up dominating Hill jobs. This could go a long way toward changing that.

“While all three organizations offer some financial support to help fellows offset the cost of housing during the length of their respective fellowship programs, Airbnb’s support will allow participants to book weeks-long stays before the start of their fellowship placements. The additional time in Washington, DC will allow fellows to spend time building relationships, exploring the city, and securing longer-term housing for their fellowship,” according to a release by the three groups. 

Here’s the full news release.

FRONTS

MOMENTS

All times Eastern.

6:30 a.m.: President Joe Biden is scheduled to land in Edinburgh. Karine Jean-Pierre and Jake Sullivan wil gaggle aboard the flight from ROme.

7:30 a.m.: Biden will appear with U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

8 a.m.: Biden will attend the COP26 opening session.

9 a.m.: Biden will speak at COP26.

10:30 a.m.: Biden will “attend an event on action and solidarity.”

11 a.m.: The Covid-19 team will brief reporters.

Noon: Biden will meet with Indonesian President Joko Widodo.

2:45 p.m.: Biden will attend a reception hosted by Johnson. 

Biden’s week: Tuesday: Biden will be at the COP26 conference in Glasgow. He’ll hold a news conference and then fly back to D.C. Wednesday: Biden arrives in D.C.

Friday: Biden will speak about the September jobs report. He’ll also attend Colin Powell’s funeral with First Lady Jill Biden.

The House and Senate will be in session today.

The Senate has two roll call votes today: A final vote on the nomination of Beth Robinson, of Vermont, to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit, and a cloture vote on the nomination of Toby J. Heytens, of Virginia, to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit. Schumer has also filed cloture on five more of Biden’s nominees. Those cloture motions will ripen Tuesday, so there will be more confirmation votes throughout the week.

The House has eight suspension bills scheduled, all of them dealing with Native American tribes.

CLIP FILE

NYT

→ “At Climate Talks, Biden Will Try to Sell American Leadership to Skeptics,” by Lisa Friedman, Jim Tankersley and Coral Davenport in Glasgow

→ “Struggling at Home, Biden Is Buoyed by G20 Trip Abroad,” by Jim Tankersley and Katie Rogers in Rome

→ “Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, has tested positive for the coronavirus,” by Katie Rogers

→ “U.S. Military Jury Condemns Terrorist’s Torture and Urges Clemency,” by Carol Rosenberg in Guantamo Bay, Cuba

WaPo

→ Big project on Jan. 6

→ “Biden seizes on G-20 summit to reverse Trump’s approach to world problems,” by Annie Linksey, Chico Harlan, and Seung Min Kim in Rome

→ “How does a pandemic start winding down? You are looking at it.” by Joel Achenbach and Yasmeen Abutaleb 

→ “Supreme Court embarks on most dramatic reckoning for abortion rights in decades,” by Robert Barnes

AP

→ “US: Progress, if not breakthroughs, at climate talks,” by Ellen Knickmeyer and Zeke Miller in Glasgow, Scotland

→ “McAuliffe, Youngkin campaigning at frenetic pace in Virginia,” by Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Va.

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