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PRESENTED BYBY JOHN BRESNAHAN, ANNA PALMER AND JAKE SHERMAN THE TOPRep. Cori Bush is winning. The Missouri Democrat’s sit-in protest over her party’s botched handling of the eviction moratorium has lasted four days. She’s been joined by colleagues, other members of the Squad and a growing number of supporters. And now, it’s exceedingly clear that the Democratic Party’s leadership and the White House have a problem on their hands. This very vocal group of junior lawmakers want to extend the federal eviction moratorium, but the leadership says they don’t have votes in the House to do it. Furthermore, Democrats don’t believe they have 60 votes in the Senate in the face of solid GOP opposition. And President Joe Biden’s administration doesn’t think it has the ability to extend the moratorium on its own. Bush, though, has refused to back down, and she’s helped put the White House and Democratic congressional leaders in a tough spot. Bush has been camped out on the House steps since Friday, sleeping sitting up in order not to draw warnings from the U.S. Capitol Police. The above photo is after she met with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in his Capitol suite Monday. And Bush’s protest is gaining momentum. It’s become a scene, with TV cameras rolling and young people singing. There was even an appearance by a visibly ailing Rev. Jesse Jackson on Monday evening. Jackson had been arrested early in the day during a protest over voting rights, but he still made sure to drop by Bush’s sit-in. What we’re seeing here is a fascinating exercise of outside political power — the kind of power that’s difficult to successfully deploy. Bush has drawn the attention of the media as she sits outside the Capitol, and that in turn means attention from the administration and senior members of the Democratic leadership. These kinds of demonstrations rarely work, but in a one-party government with tight margins in both chambers, everything needs to be taken seriously. Bush is putting pressure on Biden to resolve this situation, at least in the short term. She wants him to extend the eviction moratorium — which expired July 31 — even if it’s later struck down by a federal court. That would buy some time for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Schumer to attempt some legislative action to resolve the situation. “I think the quickest way to get this thing done is for our president to go ahead and get this thing done by an executive order and get it done. He can get it done right now,” Bush insisted during an interview Monday night. Bush is firm in when she’ll end her protest: “It ends when we win, it ends when we win. It ends when we don’t have to worry about this moratorium at this point. It ends when we get to say, ‘Okay, we got a little bit of time. Let’s go ahead and get to work to get a bill done so Congress can actually act.’ That’s when it ends for me.” Bush, 45, is a freshman legislator, yet she’s certainly captured the interest of Democratic party elders. Vice President Kamala Harris and Schumer came to see her on Monday. Schumer told her to call him at any time if she needs anything. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) made an appearance too. When we stopped by, Bush was juggling interviews with CNN and MSNBC. Reps. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) and Mark Takano (D-Calif.) were there. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) was there. There was some chanting and praying. You don’t typically see this on the East Steps of the U.S. Capitol. “This is spontaneous political combustion, and it’s building and building,” said Markey, who was first elected to Congress in 1976. “It’s just growing each hour into a national movement.” This is an old story on Capitol Hill. The rank-and-file wants something that the leadership can’t deliver. In this case, instead of simply saying that the game is up, the leadership and the White House continue to obliquely suggest it’s possible. The House Democratic leadership is publicly pressing Biden to take action. And at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., that’s been a bit frustrating because administration officials believe their hands are tied — although, publicly, White House officials say they’re checking whether they might be able to do it. All this energy leads to the questions we are focused on, and the one that you should be focused on: Just how big of a problem is this for Biden? How big of a problem is it for Pelosi? And how much anger is there between the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and Biden’s White House? The answers are: Pelosi is skating at the moment because all of the anger — and we mean all of it — is aimed squarely at the White House. The anger is real, and it’s tangible. “Once [the House] left, it was just generally accepted that this was going to lapse, and that there was nothing that we could do about it,” Ocasio-Cortez told us. “And Congresswoman Bush and I were kind of just sitting here at a loss after that rush to adjournment. And we just knew that we simply could not accept this. … We now have Majority Leader [Chuck] Schumer that is hopping on board and pushing back on the White House and the administration. And so my hope is that this ends with the Biden administration using its authority.” Ocasio-Cortez sent an email to her political email list yesterday, urging people to keep the pressure up on Congress. The larger question is what happens if the White House can’t find a way to extend this unilaterally? With a bunch of important legislation in the coming weeks, do Bush and Co. try to hold them up to ensure the inclusion of the eviction moratorium? Our bet is yes — especially with the tight margins in both chambers. The Coverage: WaPo: “Liberals erupt in fury at White House over end of eviction moratorium,” by Sean Sullivan, Marianna Sotomayor and Tyler Pager … AP: “White House calls on states to prevent evictions,” by Josh Boak and Lisa Mascaro … “Landlords, tenants fill courts as eviction moratorium ends," by Michael Casey and Philip Marcelo in Providence, Rhode Island PRESENTED BY FACEBOOK The internet has changed a lot since 1996 – internet regulations should too It’s been 25 years since comprehensive internet regulations passed. See why we support updated regulations on key issues, including: – Protecting people’s privacy LURKING AROUND THE CORNER 58 days until government funding expires. Here’s what Congress is doing The Senate Appropriations Committee will move ahead Wednesday with its first full committee markup of three spending bills for FY 2022 — Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration; Energy and Water; and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs. It’s a beginning at least — although a modest one — to what’s shaping up to be a lengthy struggle over government spending for next year. The annual appropriations bills are caught up in the larger fight over Democrats’ plan to move a $3.5 trillion budget resolution after the Senate completes work on the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. If Democratic congressional leaders are able to pass their budget resolution, and then follow that up with a multi-trillion dollar reconciliation package, there seems little chance that Republicans will do anything beyond agreeing to continuing resolutions to keep the government running at current funding levels. Yet while the budget resolution and reconciliation showdowns are looming in the near future, the Appropriations Committee will begin to move ahead while it can. None of these three bills being marked up Wednesday will reach the Senate floor before the August break, but Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is taking some solace over the fact that Congress was able to recently pass a $2.1 billion Capitol security funding bill after months of inaction. “The big fight was to get the money for the [U.S. Capitol Police] and the National Guard,” Leahy told us on Monday. “That took an enormous, enormous amount of effort.” “I think the first step was the hard one, to show we can do it. Sen. [Richard] Shelby and I demonstrated we can do it,” Leahy added. “There’s too much partisanship. I think we can settle things together.” These three spending bills are the first to reach the full Appropriations Committee since Senate Democrats brought back earmarks. Democrats submitted earmark requests worth more than $2 billion for this trio of bills alone, although only a fraction of those will get approved. All requests must be publicly disclosed and must include a declaration by the senator of no financial interest by themselves or their immediate family in the request. Senate Republicans kept their conference ban on earmarks in place. But that didn’t stop GOP senators from requesting more than $790 million earmark requests for these three bills, according to an analysis of the Republican submittals. Like the Democratic requests, only a portion of these will actually get approved, although it is interesting to see the old earmark ways return, even if only a little bit. Of course, earmarks will largely disappear if a CR is adopted, so all this effort may be for naught anyway. INFRASTRUCTURE Bipartisan infrastructure debt rolls out despite Covid scare Even with Monday’s panic over Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) positive Covid test, voting has begun on the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. There were three amendment votes last night — two passed with 90+ votes, one failed — and more are expected today. However, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have yet to reach a larger agreement on the number of amendments that will be allowed and how long the voting will continue before Schumer moves to cut it off. A number of senators are expected to attend the late GOP Sen. Mike Enzi’s funeral on Friday in Wyoming. Schumer and other top Democrats are also anxious to get to work on the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget resolution. So another weekend session looks possible right now. The Republican Policy Committee, the wing of leadership chaired by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), has a handy tool that is tracking all the amendments filed to the massive Senate infrastructure bill. There are more than 150 amendments that have been submitted, and they cover a wide range of topics. For example, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) has language that deals with hurricane assistance. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) is offering a provision on horse transportation. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) has an amendment that rescinds the Biden administration’s decision to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline. In other words, there’s a wide array of possible amendments, ranging from the substantive to the political. INFRASTRUCTURE ON THE TRAIL GOP candidate in Ohio riffs on the BIF Republican Bernie Moreno owns car dealerships in Ohio, and he’s now running for the seat being vacated by Sen. Rob Portman. Portman, as you know, has been the lead GOP negotiator on the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal. Moreno, though, doesn’t seem to think much of it. Here is a sneak peek of him talking to Josh Holmes on the “Ruthless” podcast about the proposal.
MOMENTS 10:15 a.m.: President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will get their daily intelligence briefing. 1 p.m.: Biden and Harris will “meet with Latino community leaders to discuss his economic agenda, immigration reform, and the need to protect the sacred, Constitutional right to vote; they will commemorate the second anniversary of the horrific 2019 mass shooting in El Paso.” 1:30 p.m.: Jen Psaki will brief. 3:45 p.m.: Biden will speak about Covid-19 vaccines. CLIP FILE NYT → “$1 Trillion Infrastructure Bill Pours Money Into Long-Delayed Needs,” by Emily Cochrane, Christopher Flavelle and Alan Rappeport: “Amtrak would see its biggest infusion of money since its inception a half-century ago. Climate resilience programs would receive their largest burst of government spending ever. The nation’s power grid would be upgraded to the tune of $73 billion. “The sprawling, $1 trillion bill that the Senate took up on Monday — a 2,702-page bipartisan deal that is the product of months of negotiating and years of pent-up ambitions to repair the nation’s crumbling infrastructure — would amount to the most substantial government expenditure on the aging public works system since 2009. “It is also stuffed with pet projects and priorities that touch on nearly every facet of American life, including the most obscure, like a provision to allow blood transport vehicles to use highway car pool lanes to bypass traffic when fresh vials are on board and another to fully fund a federal grant program to promote ‘pollinator-friendly practices’ near roads and highways. (Price tag for the latter: $2 million per year.)” → “Conservative Group, Seizing on Crime as an Issue, Seeks Recall of Prosecutors,” by Ken Vogel → “Biden Administration to Keep Using Public Health Rule to Turn Away Migrants,” by Eileen Sullivan and Zolan Kanno-Youngs WaPo → “Maricopa County defies state subpoena seeking to expand GOP ballot review, calling it an ‘adventure in never-never land’” by Roz Helderman → “Ex-Illinois Gov. Blagojevich, granted clemency by Trump, sues for right to seek elected office again,” by Andrew Jeong WSJ → WSJ Editorial Board: “The Infrastructure ‘Pay-Fors’ That Aren’t” Politico → “Letter: Trump legal team not trying to block testimony of former DOJ officials,” by Betsy Woodruff Swan and Nicholas Wu PRESENTED BY FACEBOOK Why Facebook supports updated internet regulations 2021 is the 25th anniversary of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the last major update to internet regulation. It’s time for an update to set clear rules for addressing today’s toughest challenges. See how we’re taking action on key issues and why we support updated internet regulations. Enjoying Punchbowl News AM? Subscribe 10 friends with your unique link (below) and get a Punchbowl News hat! Your referral link is: Or share via You currently have: 0 referrals
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