Congress heads home until September

House Republican rebuked after cussing out Senate Pages

Also in today’s edition of ‘Regular Order’ for July 28, 2023:

• House passes one spending bill, stumbles on second.

• Lawmakers digest new charges against Trump.

• Senate approves bipartisan defense bill.

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CONGRESS. The U.S. House and Senate wrapped up a busy three-week July legislative session in much different ways on Thursday, as House Republicans had to delay work on a government funding plan, while Senators easily approved a major defense policy bill. The final day was punctuated by the bizarre story of a House Republican who cussed out a group of Senate Pages and refused to apologize. Congress will return after Labor Day.

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HOUSE. I told you yesterday that it wouldn't surprise me for GOP divisions to force the House to leave Capitol Hill early for a 6-week break - and that's exactly what happened on Thursday. Unable to resolve their differences on spending, House Republicans had to pull the plug on one government funding bill, and canceled votes scheduled for today.

• DELAY. Before leaving town, the House did approve a $317 billion measure to fund military construction and veterans programs. But the bigger news was that the GOP delayed action on a $25.3 billion agriculture spending bill in part because of demands for deeper cuts by House conservatives.

• MCCARTHY. Brushing off the GOP disagreements, Speaker Kevin McCarthy blamed Democrats for the lack of progress on funding bills. "There's not one Democrat on the other side that wants to help us," McCarthy said at a news conference. "All they want to do is spend more money."

• DEADLINE. The House and Senate are supposed to finish their spending bill work each year by September 30. That’s pretty hard to do when the Senate will be gone for the next five weeks, and the House is gone for six weeks.

• SCOREBOARD. There are 12 government funding bills which Congress tries to approve by September 30 each year. (That hasn't happened since 1996.) So far, the House has approved 1 of 12; the Senate is 0 of 12. The Senate Appropriations Committee reported out all 12 bills; House Appropriations has approved 10 of 12.

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SENATE. While the House hit some potholes on spending bills, the Senate worked like clockwork, voting 86-11 to approve a major defense policy bill. Instead of bitter policy fights, Senators steered clear of thorny social policy riders which turned the House bill into a partisan measure. "This was a bipartisan process through and through," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

• CONFERENCE. Senate approval of the $886 billion defense bill sets up contentious negotiations with the House, where GOP lawmakers added amendments on abortion, transgender rights, diversity, and more. Republicans won’t get everything - but they may get some of that in a final bill.

• ABORTION. While the House voted to end a new Pentagon policy that gives active duty service women time and travel to seek abortion services, the Senate bill is silent. "The Senate basically has concluded that the policy of the Department of Defense is both legal and one that should be retained," said Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI). "I think we will prevail."

• OCEAN'S ELEVEN. The 11 Senators who voted against the defense bill were the expected mix of very progressive and very conservative: Booker (D-NJ), Braun (R-IN), Lee (R-UT), Markey (D-MA), Merkley (D-OR), Paul (R-KY), Sanders (I-VT), Vance (R-OH), Warren (D-MA), Welch (D-VT), and Wyden (D-OR).

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VAN ORDEN. Senators in both parties last night denounced Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI), who cussed out a small group of Senate Pages in the Capitol Rotunda for no good reason. "I was shocked when I heard about it," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. "And I am further shocked at his refusal to apologize to these young people."

• SALUTE. Senators last night gave the Pages a standing ovation as Schumer's rebuke of Van Orden was endorsed by Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell. "Everybody on this side of the aisle feels exactly the same way," he said, making clear this was a House-Senate matter, not a Republican-Democrat matter.

• LATE NIGHT. What happened? As the Senate worked past midnight on Wednesday, a group of Senate Pages were lying on the floor of the deserted Capitol Rotunda, taking in the beautiful sights. That's when Van Orden arrived. The Wisconsin Republican started yelling at them. "Who the fuck are you?" Van Orden reportedly said. "Get the fuck out of here."

• PARTY TIME. Pictures from Wednesday night showed the aftermath of a party at Van Orden's office, with bottles of liquor on tables and cans of beer in trash cans. Van Orden admitted there had been a gathering and didn't come close to any kind of apology, claiming the kids were 'defiling' the Rotunda.

• SENATE PAGES. On their final day at work, the Pages were in shock at how they had suddenly become the focus of the news. A few told me the kids in the Rotunda had a staffer with them, and were doing nothing wrong - when Van Orden suddenly erupted.

• FOLKS. Let’s just be up front and honest about this. Van Orden was way out of line. “If you are going to yell at a bunch of congressional pages or interns, you are probably an asshole,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA).

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MACED. While Van Orden was cussing out Pages, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) was talking about morning sex at a prayer breakfast for Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC). Really. I’m not kidding.

• TMI. “When I woke up this morning," Mace told the group, "Patrick my fiancé tried to pull me by my waist over in bed, and I was like, 'No baby - we don't got time this morning. I gotta get to the prayer breakfast, and I gotta be on time.'"

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MCCONNELL. Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell was at work on Thursday, a day after he froze while addressing reporters. He did not mention the incident and did not answer questions about it. Again, I will say that since his bad fall in March, I definitely noticed that McConnell moves more slowly and has struggled at times with his speeches.

• DI FI. Another older Senator raised eyebrows on Thursday. Called on to vote in a committee markup, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) instead started giving a statement. A staffer finally stopped her, and she voted yes after Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) intervened. "Just say aye," Murray said firmly.

• RETIREMENT. This kind of thing has confused me since my first job on Capitol Hill. Why would you want to grow old - and keep working? Wouldn't it be better to give speeches and relax at home? But there are a lot of people in power who evidently don't want to give up that power.

• SENATE GOP. The McConnell situation is doubly important, because he is the leader of Senate Republicans. His office put out a photo of him meeting with constituents yesterday on Capitol Hill. That seemed to me to be an effort to very directly say, ‘he’s doing fine.’ Is he? We’ll see.

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REGULAR ORDER. There was a lot of talk this week in the halls of Congress about the need for ‘Regular Order’ - a reminder of why I used that name. Spread the word about my newsletter to your friends, give someone a gift subscription, or maybe just buy me a drink. I still need to put the Dupree kids through college.

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TRUMP LEGAL. On a day when tourists milled about outside the federal courthouse in Washington waiting for possible charges against former President Donald Trump related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, federal prosecutors instead added new charges to the case against Trump dealing with classified documents found at his Florida estate.

• NEW NAME. Hours after Trump's lawyers met with the Special Counsel at the courthouse just down the hill from the Capitol, a superseding indictment filed in Florida accused Trump of asking Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira to delete security footage of boxes which contained classified documents.

• THE BOSS. The indictment said De Oliveira had told another Trump employee that 'the boss' wanted the video server deleted, 'to prevent the footage from being provided to a federal grand jury.' De Oliveira was also accused of lying to the FBI about helping to move boxes of documents around Mar-a-Lago.

• GOP. Republicans quickly expressed their disgust with the new charges. "The DOJ’s decision to pursue additional charges against President Trump is further evidence of the politicization of our nation’s top prosecutorial agency," said Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). But most Republicans stayed silent.

• OBSTRUCTION. Democrats said the superseding indictment made clear Trump had obstructed justice. "It's not the crime, it's the cover up," said Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME), channeling a line born from the Watergate scandal.

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UKRAINE. A key Senate Democrat said Thursday that he expects President Biden will ask Congress in coming weeks for extra military aid for Ukraine. "I think we can anticipate a supplemental sometime this next month on Ukraine from the administration," said Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT).

• FUNDING. The move would certainly set up a fight between the House and Senate. While Senators in both parties would likely support more aid for Ukraine, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said he's not entertaining an extra spending bill for that purpose.

• GOP. "We're about to leave town and we haven't come up with a plan to fund Ukraine," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of the staunchest Republican backers of aid to Kyiv. "I hope when we get back we'll fix that."

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ZUCKERBERG. House Republicans on Thursday backed off their threat to hold Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress, after the company turned over documents sought by the House Judiciary Committee. "Based on Facebook's newfound commitment to fully cooperate," said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), "the Committee has decided to hold contempt in abeyance. For now."

• DOCS. Jordan immediately released some internal documents which showed Facebook was being pressured by the Biden Administration to crack down on social media misinformation in 2021. "SMOKING-GUN DOCS PROVE FACEBOOK CENSORED AMERICANS BECAUSE OF BIDEN WHITE HOUSE PRESSURE," Jordan tweeted.

• ELECTION. The original subpoena to Meta covered documents going back to January 1, 2020. But Jordan did not release any from that year. We already know Trump officials leaned on social media companies to take down posts - like the tweet from model Chrissy Teigen where she called Trump a 'pussy ass bitch.'

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VENI VIDI VICI. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, and it produced a hilarious moment. I saw a security officer take two members of the Italian entourage just outside the Capitol - showing them where it would be okay to smoke a cigarette. (In other words - not inside the building.)

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THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN. What a weird week this has been. Alabama defied the U.S. Supreme Court, and won't draw two Black majority districts in Congress. House Republicans tried again to go back to old Confederate names of military bases (that failed). And the GOP won't even use some of the new (non-Confederate) base names in a military construction bill.

• COLUMN. Instead of moving forward, the Party of Lincoln keeps fighting to preserve the Confederate past. That's my column this week for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

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RAP SHEET. A Kentucky man was found guilty this week of nine criminal counts related to his actions on Jan. 6. Chad Jones repeatedly tried to force open the barricaded doors to the Speaker's Lobby. He was standing near the door when a police officer shot and killed Ashli Babbit, as she tried to climb through a broken window into that area off the House floor.

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MUSE OF HISTORY.  July 28, 1970.  Debating a major reorganization act, the House was wrestling on this date over how best to elect chairs of committees.  The House rejected one plan which said a chair could only be picked from the three most senior committee members. "The seniority system has produced good chairmen and it has produced some not quite as good," said Rep. Charles Vanik (D-OH).  Lawmakers ultimately voted to let each party decide their own rules.

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LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM:

The House next has votes on September 12.

The Senate next has votes on September 5.

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Email me at jamiedupree@substack.com

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