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PRESENTED BY

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

THE TOP

Happy Monday and welcome to Thanksgiving week. 

This recess brings a bit of a temporary reprieve to Washington. Lawmakers depart for the holiday, leaving staffers to scramble drafting legislation and setting up hearings for December. Codels are heading all over the world. But this holiday also tends to bring another dynamic to the fore — retirements. Members of Congress, facing political uncertainty or peril, remember how good it is to be back at home. Other opportunities pop up and they seem better than serving in a deeply divided, unhappy Congress. Once-a-decade redistricting also is playing a role this year. And potentially losing the majority will influence veteran Democrats in the coming weeks and months.

The big change this cycle is that more Democrats are leaving Congress. Right now, 17 Democrats have announced their retirements versus 11 Republicans. Some of these members are seeking other offices.

And here’s a statistic from Ethan Cohen of CNN: “At this point in the 2020 cycle (11/16/2019) 28 House members (20 R, 8 D) were on track to leave the chamber at the end of the term, including 6 members (3 R, 3 D) who were running for higher offices.”

Some of this is natural turnover. Democrats are overwhelmingly represented in the most senior ranks of House members. Thirty-nine of the 50 longest-serving members of the House are Democrats. Eventually, even they leave office.

But there’s also the dim outlook for Democrats in 2022. Democrats who’ve been through several of the majority-to-minority-back-to-majority spin may not want another turn in the minority. Being in the minority can be a grind. 

Take a look at what we’re seeing:

→ Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), the 85-year-old chair of the Science, Space and Technology Committee, announced Saturday she’s going to retire after nearly three decades in Congress. Democrats don’t have term limits and very rarely boot their chairmen, so EBJ, as she is known, would retain her gavel if Democrats kept the majority. Johnson was the second Democratic committee chair to retire recently (Budget Committee Chair John Yarmuth of Kentucky) and the second prominent Black Democratic lawmaker (Rep. G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina) just this past week. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) also announced she won’t seek a ninth term. Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) is running for Senate, looking to replace retiring Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).

→ Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) said he would take the Thanksgiving break to consider whether he would take incoming New York City Mayor Eric Adams up on his offer to become one of the city’s deputy mayors. Suozzi is a member of the Ways and Means Committee, and he has been influential in pushing a repeal of state-and-local tax deduction caps. If Suozzi takes Adams’ offer, that would result in a special election for his Long Island seat — a contest Republicans would undoubtedly fight for. This would be problematic for Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s tight margins.

→ Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.): The New York tabloids are openly wondering whether Nadler, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, will run again. The 74-year-old Nadler has served in the House since 1992.

→ We are waiting on a decision from Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). Thune said is expected to announce whether he will run for re-election in the coming weeks. Thune could be Republican Senate leader someday. And Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) hasn’t said whether he will seek another term either in what is a battleground state.

You should expect another round of retirements following Thanksgiving and into early 2022, especially once the new House maps get finalized.

Also: Remember that we are due a decision by President Joe Biden on the chair of the Federal Reserve.  Biden said he would have an announcement in “four days” last week. Here’s the WSJ on Biden nearing his “endgame” on the Fed chair.  And here’s Bloomberg on Biden’s economic speech on Tuesday. The president will leave for Nantucket tomorrow night. He has no public events on his schedule until 4 p.m. today.

DEBT LIMIT

New analysis says borrowing limit could slip to mid-January

We’re just a few days away from December, which is looking like it will be a legislative nightmare. We have Senate Democrats trying to pass the Build Back Better Act, and the deadlines for government funding and the debt limit are fast approaching. 

But here’s some good news: Wrightson ICAP, which tracks the debt limit very closely, now says it believes the Treasury Department has until the middle of January before the nation hits the borrowing cap. Here’s what they say in their weekly analysis:

As always, there is plenty of uncertainty about how quickly the Treasury would run out of cash after December 15.  Secretary Yellen’s letter to Congress warned that “there are scenarios in which Treasury would be left with insufficient remaining resources” after that date.  That is true, but there are many more scenarios in which the Treasury would be able to operate for several weeks after that date without a debt ceiling increase.  The fact that the Secretary was willing to express a “high degree of confidence” that Treasury will be adequately funded through December 15 indicates that the Treasury itself thinks it will have plenty of margin for error on that day.  Treasury bills maturing in the subsequent ten days will be subject to headline risk because “December 15” will continue to be a talking point, but there is little danger of any operational disruptions to any of the issues maturing before Christmas. 

Our own updated base case is that the Treasury will have enough resources to meet its obligations until the first half of January. There is some risk that it might run into trouble in the final couple of days of December, but there is also some chance that the drop-dead date might not arrive until after the mid-January nonwithheld individual income tax deadline.  The Treasury, obviously, hopes that the debt ceiling issue will be resolved well before then, but it has nevertheless begun to fine-tune its bill issuance in case it is still on a short leash in the second half of next month. The 35-day cash management bill that will be sold on Tuesday will run off on December 31, which will help the Treasury accommodate the settlement of its month-end note and bond auctions if it still faces headroom constraints at that time.

Now there’s certainly a chance that Congress tries to deal with the debt limit in December either way. In fact, we think they probably will. But the more wiggle room they have, the better.

→ Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) has his Senate campaign website up. That’s new! He hasn’t formally announced he is running for the seat being vacated by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), although it was widely assumed he would. 

→ Charles Herbster, running for governor in Nebraska, has cut an entire ad based on former president Donald Trump’s endorsement. It’s running in media markets in Lincoln, Neb., Omaha and Sioux City, Iowa. 

→ An interesting campaign finance nugget: The RNC transferred $1,106,750 to the Republican Party of Virginia in October ahead of the gubernatorial election.

FRONTS

MOMENTS

10 a.m.: President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will get their intelligence briefing.

4 p.m.: Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will leave the White House for Andrews, where they will fly to Fort Bragg, N.C.

6 p.m.: The Bidens will celebrate “Friendsgiving with service members and military families as part of the Joining Forces initiative.”

7:40 p.m.: The Bidens will leave Fort Bragg for Andrews. They’ll arrive at the White House at 9 p.m.

The week ahead: Tuesday: Biden will speak about the economy and “lowering prices for the American people.” The Bidens, Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff will “participate in a service project in Washington, D.C.” 

The Bidens will leave for Nantucket Tuesday night.

CLIP FILE

NYT

→ “As Hopes for Nuclear Deal Fade, Iran Rebuilds and Risks Grow,” by David Sanger, Steven Erlanger, Farnaz Fassihi and Lara Jakes

→ Ben Smith: “Two Fox News Contributors Quit in Protest of Tucker Carlson’s Jan. 6 Special”

→ “Thanksgiving Will Cost More This Year. That Could Cost Democrats, Too,” by Trip Gabriel

→ “Man Who Threatened Democrats Online Could Face Years in Prison,” by Rebecca Davis O’Brien

WaPo

→ “A MAGA squad of Trump loyalists sees its influence grow amid demands for political purity among Republicans,” by Jacqueline Alemany, Marianna Sotomayor and Josh Dawsey

→ “Treatments will change the pandemic, but they can’t end it alone,” by Carolyn Y. Johnson

WSJ

→ “Pension Cash Dwindles, Risking Liquidity Crunch,” by Heather Gillers

→ “Cross-Border Tax-Rate Gaps to Shrink as Democrats Advance Biden Agenda,” by Rich Rubin

Bloomberg

→ “U.S. Intel Shows Russia Plans for Potential Ukraine Invasion,” by Alberto Nardelli and Jennifer Jacobs

Financial Times

→ “Chinese hypersonic weapon fired a missile over South China Sea,” by Demetri Sevastopulo

AP

→ “In Africa, Blinken sees limits of US influence abroad,” by Matthew Lee in Dakar, Senegal

Politico

→ “Senate’s Jan. 6 ethics probe into Cruz, Hawley drags on,” by Burgess Everett

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

→ “A person plowed their SUV through the Waukesha Christmas Parade, leaving five dead and more than 40 injured authorities say," by Bill Glauber, Mary Spicuzza and Molly Beck

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Editorial photos provided by Getty Images