Christmas comes early on Capitol Hill
Conservatives furious over 1,547 page year-end package
Also in today’s edition of ‘Regular Order’ for December 18, 2024:
Some big wins for farm interests in the CR.
House Dems opt for youth - but draw the line at Ocasio-Cortez.
When D.C. traded its fighter jets for an NFL stadium.
CR PLUS. Christmas came early last night on Capitol Hill. And not everyone was happy about it. Congressional leaders unveiled a compromise year-end legislative package that combines a short-term government funding extension with $100 billion in emergency disaster aid. The plan includes dozens of other unrelated provisions, all stuffed in a 1,547 page bill which could get a vote by Friday.
READ THE BILL. First, let's start with the documents in case you want to see the details. The table of contents is 14 pages - you can look through that while having coffee. If you want to dig into the full bill, it's at this link. (It was notable that neither party put out a summary of the measure.)
STOPGAP. First, the bill extends temporary government funding at 2024 levels through March 14. Instead of just finishing those spending bills now, Republicans opted to kick the can into the new Congress and the new Trump Administration. The current shutdown deadline is this Friday night.
EMERGENCY AID. The next big headline is $100 billion in emergency disaster relief. That includes help for victims of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, plus money to fund other disaster relief efforts for floods, wildfires, and tornadoes. This was a win for the White House, as Republicans had talked about cutting that request by more than half.
FARM AID. Farm interests won a series of major victories in this bill. The plan includes a temporary extension of the Farm Bill, plus $10 billion in economic aid for farmers. And there was a huge win for corn interests in the Midwest, as the bill has a provision allowing year-round sales of E15 ethanol gasoline.
MUCH MORE. What else is there? There are provisions on 'American Music Tourism,' which creates the job of 'Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Travel and Tourism.' There are provisions on transparency for hotel fees, and on fees for tickets to sports and music shows - so people know exactly how much those tickets will cost. And there might be a pay raise for members of Congress for the first time in over a decade. We’ll see how that lands on Capitol Hill today.
FIGHTER JETS. Also in the bill was a deal that none of us have ever seen before. It could pave the way for a new home for Washington's NFL team in D.C., on the site of the old RFK Stadium - which sits on federal land. Part of the deal involved the District of Columbia giving its Air National Guard fighter jets to Maryland (I’m not kidding). That's in Section 602.
RECEPTION. Outside on Tuesday at the Capitol, the weather was unusually warm. But inside a House GOP meeting on the CR, it was a very chilly reception for Speaker Mike Johnson. "Conservative Republicans should start an OnlyFans account considering how often we get screwed," said Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL), as critics dumped all over the bill - and the Speaker.
ANGER. "How many hours will we have to read this monstrous bill so we can find everything the Swamp stuffed into it?" asked Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA). "There is nothing more reliable than Washington’s annual tradition of passing a pork-filled omnibus before Christmas," said Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT).
DETAILS. GOP Critics denounced tidbits of the bill as they waded through the 1,547 pages of legislative text. "You read that right," tweeted Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA). "$3,000,000 to test molasses at ports of entry." Expect even more complaints as everyone reads through the bill.
SPEAKER. I don't want to start unnecessary speculation about House Speaker Mike Johnson - but the frustration with him was impossible to ignore in the hallways on Tuesday. With this CR, there are way more Republicans mad at him right now than he can afford to lose when the new Congress convenes on Jan. 3.
CR PLUS. "It's not a Christmas tree," the Speaker told reporters about this week’s final bill, leading me to conclude that our definitions of a Legislative Christmas Tree must be radically different. "I'm not worried about the Speaker vote," Johnson told reporters. But maybe he should be.
GRUMBLING. "We complained about Nancy Pelosi dropping thousands of pages of an Omnibus bill just before Christmas," said Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO), who characterized the process as a 'dumpster fire.' "How is this any different?"
JANUARY 3. Reporters repeatedly asked GOP conservatives whether they would support Johnson on Jan. 3 when the new Congress convenes - and a number of them would not answer the question. "I'm not going there right now," said Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX). “I'm not going to get into that right now,” said Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL). “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet,” added Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN).
SPEAKER. I’m not saying there is about to be a crisis for Speaker Johnson or that he might not get elected Speaker - but it only takes a couple of Republicans to create big problems for him on Jan. 3. You could sense the extreme GOP frustration with this year-end deal.
ET TU, BRUTE? "The Christmas CR lump of coal comes with a warning," tweeted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). "Beware the Ides of March,” Greene added. The vote for Speaker is two weeks from Friday.
SLOW MOTION. After a House GOP meeting, a group of us crowded around Rep. G.T. Thompson (R-PA), the Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee. I stuck my phone in with other reporters to get some comments about farm aid in the CR, when Thompson waved his arm for emphasis. My phone suddenly started flying through the air.
KICK SAVE AND A BEAUT. Luckily for me, Thompson has some good reflexes. Even as my phone bounced off his suit jacket, somehow the Pennsylvania Republican grabbed it before the phone hit the floor. He marveled at my good fortune. "You oughta go out and buy a lottery ticket," Thompson said to laughs.
DEFENSE. While Congress digests the details of the CR, the Senate is expected today to give final approval to a major defense policy bill, the National Defense Authorization Act. This will be the 64th consecutive year that this measure has become law - one of the few bipartisan measures which can still advance through the Congress.
SOCIAL SECURITY. After that, the Senate will try to muster 60 votes to start work on a House-passed bill which helps people with public-sector pensions get full Social Security benefits. The bill passed by a large margin in the House, but Senate Republicans are calling for changes - which could doom the bill.
SENATE. "Our public servants are counting on us," said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA). Democrats will need about 15 GOP Senators to join them in advancing the bill.
AGE. House Democrats on Tuesday decided against fully embracing the future, voting to install 74-year-old Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) as the party's leader on the House Oversight Committee - and rejecting the bid of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who at 35 is less than half of Connolly's age.
SENIORITY. The vote wasn't close, with Connolly winning 131-84, as he promised to take on the Trump Administration. "This will be trench warfare," Connolly said. The outcome didn't really surprise me, as Ocasio-Cortez is still viewed with a bit of suspicion by more veteran Democrats. "We live to fight another day," she told supporters on social media.
MESSAGE. Some party outsiders were a bit puzzled. "Valuing seniority over political and messaging chops is exactly how Democrats got into this mess in the first place," tweeted former top Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer.
ONE FOR TWO. While ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi had lobbied against Ocasio-Cortez moving up on House Oversight, Pelosi's efforts did not produce victory for the top Dem on the House Agriculture Committee. In that race, Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) defeated Pelosi’s candidate, Rep. Jim Costa (D-CA). Craig is only 52 - she replaces 79-year-old Rep. David Scott (D-GA).
THREE DOWN. The votes capped an extraordinary last few weeks for House Democrats, as they tossed aside three very senior lawmakers on three different committees: Rep. David Scott (D-GA), Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY). Sometimes, the seniority system doesn’t work.
PELOSI. We learned some crazy new details yesterday about an incident last week where ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi broke her hip during a Congressional trip to Europe. "I was right next to her," Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) told reporters, describing Pelosi being in high heels on a marble staircase. "She lost her footing and fell to the ground."
DIVA DOWN. McCaul said he helped get Pelosi up - just as an official photograph was taken of lawmakers in Luxembourg. That's McCaul and Pelosi in the lower right. "You can see me holding her up by her hand," McCaul said. Again - this was *after* Pelosi broke her hip. She was soon taken to a U.S. military hospital in Germany, where she underwent hip replacement surgery.
MOSKOWITZ. A day after reports that President-elect Donald Trump might pick him as FEMA chief, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) publicly said he was not interested. "I appreciate the speculation but I am staying in Congress and running for re-election," the Florida Democrat tweeted in a Shermanesque declaration.
FEMA. Moskowitz would have been a good fit at FEMA, as he once served as Florida's emergency management director. But I also think he's a good fit for Democrats in Congress in terms of a younger lawmaker at 43-years-old.
CATS AND DOGS. There are all sorts of minor bills which might have a chance to become law in the waning days of this Congressional session, what we often refer to as legislative cats and dogs. For example, the House this week approved H.R. 6394, the Semiquincentennial Congressional Time Capsule Act.
HISTORY. The bill would authorize a time capsule to be buried on the Capitol grounds honoring the 250th anniversary of the United States - with the goal to open it for the nation's 500th birthday in 2276. "I suspect I won't be here at the opening," cracked Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY).
LOCATION. Hopefully, the Architect of the Capitol (the real AOC on Capitol Hill) will dutifully record the location of the time capsule - if this bill becomes law. Remember, the Capitol cornerstone - which was laid by George Washington in 1793 - has gone missing over the years.
NAME. Of course, I can't mention the 250th anniversary of our nation without again plugging an alternate name. I still think that 'Bicenquinquagenary' would have been much more entertaining than Semiquincentennial - which technically means half (semi) of five (quin) of a century.
RAP SHEET. A North Carolina man was sentenced to 38 months in prison for assaulting police on Jan. 6. Brett Rotella led other rioters in overwhelming officers repeatedly outside the Capitol, allowing Trump supporters to advance on the building. Rotella then helped break windows to get inside, and later joined in attacking police in the Lower West Terrace Tunnel.
MUSE OF HISTORY. December 18, 1917. On this date, the Senate was debating an amendment to the Constitution on prohibition, and whether Congress could set a 7-year time limit for states to vote on that change. "We have no power by this method to limit the time within which this amendment shall be ratified," argued Sen. William Borah of Idaho. Borah lost that debate, as the Eighteenth Amendment was the first to have a ratification deadline imposed by Congress.
TODAY. That exact issue came up yesterday on the Equal Rights Amendment, which was not ratified during its original 7-year time limit. With some talk that President Biden might try to add it to the Constitution - because enough states have now ratified the ERA - the National Archives rejected the idea. "The Archivist of the United States cannot legally publish the Equal Rights Amendment."
LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM:
The House convenes at 10 am.
The Senate meets at 10 am.
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I went down the rabbit hole trying to understand why we needed $3M for molasses inspections. Google “stuffed molasses”. It’s a way of circumventing sugar import rules and harms US sugar farmers. I’m guessing inspections are necessary to ensure importers are complying with trade agreements. Not saying I agree or disagree, just trying to understand what it’s about.
Moskowitz did the right thing for so many reasons! First of all, his family and friends in South Florida would disown him. Trust me. He comes from a huge Democrat background. Plus, who would want to be part of the chaos of the incoming administration? And, knowing Trump, there's no guarantee you'd keep your job for long. He is also the perfect pitbull to go after MAGA types on the Hill. I love watching his comments during hearings. He really knows how to make his points. Definitely an up-and-comer in the Democratic Party.