Capitol Hill and the midterms
Before turning to the tricky government funding debate that will dominate the coming days, lawmakers spent last week advancing a handful of unfinished tasks.
In the House, lawmakers passed a four-bill package that would bolster funding for the police, providing vulnerable Democratic members a proof point as they look to fend off campaign attacks that they want to defund the police and are aloof about rising crime. The chamber also advanced legislation that would clarify the Electoral Count Act, the core of Congress’ legislative response so far to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
There are no plans for either of the measures to come up for votes in the Senate before the midterm elections, as congressional Democrats defend their majorities and Republicans — particularly those in the House — are measuring the drapes and preparing for leadership battles.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) unveiled his “Commitment to America” platform, a loose agenda highlighting some of the party’s most salient attack lines against Democrats — immigration, public safety and domestic energy production — as well as their plans to investigate Biden.
McCarthy’s “Commitment” platform earned endorsements from a range of lawmakers, from those who represent battleground districts to members of the House Freedom Caucus. But members of the prominent MAGA-aligned cohort are attempting to flex their strength in advance of a potential McCarthy speaker bid by demanding rule changes that could limit leadership’s authority.
On the Democratic side, several lawmakers and aides believe the party’s top three leaders — Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) — will all step aside if Democrats lose the House. While none of them have indicated as much, The Wall Street Journal has described a shadow campaign between Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries of New York and Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee.
Pelosi and other leaders have pressed lawmakers to pony up dues to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to help finance the party’s midterm efforts, something all the more important given that Republicans have a cash advantage heading into the campaign’s final month.
Still, things aren’t going perfectly on the Republican side. In Ohio, the National Republican Congressional Committee bowed out of the once competitive race to unseat Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) amid concerns about controversial Republican candidate JR Majewski’s chances in November after he was caught embellishing his record.
When it comes to the fight for the other chamber, the Senate Leadership Fund, a McConnell-aligned super PAC, has canceled its spending in the Arizona Senate race. In doing so, the group expressed confidence that other outside entities will assist Republican nominee Blake Masters in his tough bid against Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, and said it would instead use the $9.6 million to try to flip Senate seats in Georgia, New Hampshire and Nevada. Others are losing confidence in the Arizona Republican’s chances: The Cook Political Report moved the contest from its list of toss-up races to “lean Democrat,” citing anemic fundraising from Masters.
Trump may be looking to help: The former president’s aides, led by Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich and veteran Republican strategist Chris LaCivita, are launching a new group called MAGA, Inc. for him to potentially use to spend millions in support of the Republican effort to take the House and Senate in the November elections. But the structure of the group would also allow him to transfer an enormous sum of money from his well-funded Save America outfit to a political operation that could serve as the basis of a 2024 campaign that Trump appears to be itching for.
The former president
Another week has brought Trump additional legal heat. As The Washington Post succinctly put it, “the breadth of current and potential legal challenges are large even by the standards of Trump, who has spent much of his adult life in litigation.”
On the civil front, Trump and three of his adult children are facing a $250 million lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James accusing them of fraud in their business practices at the Trump Organization. He’s also facing the potential escalation of claims by the author E. Jean Carroll, who’s already sued him for defamation and is planning to sue him for sexual battery under a new New York law.
And then there’s the issue of the classified documents the FBI found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in August.
The special master overseeing the review of documents ordered the former president’s lawyers to corroborate out-of-court claims that federal agents may have planted evidence during their August search of the property. And in a blow to Trump’s side, a federal appeals court is allowing the Justice Department to continue using classified documents it seized as part of its criminal investigation into the former president’s handling of government materials, limiting his options to block the federal probe.
The ordeal left the former president’s current lawyers acknowledging that the Justice Department’s probe could lead to an indictment as they debated the ground rules for the special master’s review, something Trump was reportedly warned about late last year when former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann noted potential legal peril regarding his refusal to turn over the documents.
ICYMI
