Category: House

McCarthy keeps right flank tight as he closes in on Speakership

Posted on (Updated by Emily Brooks

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is giving the confrontational right flank of the GOP conference a seat at the table as he aims to shore up their support for Speaker if Republicans take the chamber next year.

McCarthy is eyeing having to manage a conference next year that is expected to tilt further to the right with a higher proportion of allies loyal to former President Trump. 

And he’s starting now by including controversial figures and members of the House Freedom Caucus in high-profile events in an effort to seemingly win them over — unlike some of his GOP predecessors.

Firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) will be at a rollout event outside Pittsburgh on Friday for McCarthy’s Commitment to America policy platform, a list of policy priorities inspired by the 1994 Contract with America.

“I’m really happy with it,” Greene said of the plan. “The reason why I'm involved in — going to be actively involved is to make sure that we can push to get the right things in there when it comes time to put the bills to the floor.”

The rollout of the plan marks not just a formal statement of policy priorities aimed at wooing voters, but the culmination of McCarthy’s work to unify an ideologically and stylistically diverse conference around his leadership.

More than a year ago, McCarthy formed several task forces intended to craft policies that members could run on during the midterms. The vast majority of such Republican members were on the panels, including Greene and House Freedom Caucus Chair Scott Perry (Pa.), among others.

That has helped McCarthy gain buy-in from the right for his vision of a GOP majority. 

McCarthy told reporters that the conference was “very much” unified around the Commitment to America plan, and that he “didn’t hear one negative word” about it.

“You know the conference, right? The different philosophical makeup. You could go from John Katko” — a more moderate New York Republican who is retiring — “to Marjorie Greene” he said, reflecting on the party’s political spectrum.

But some members have stopped short of giving full-throated support for the plan or his Speakership bid, raising questions about whether he would have enough votes should the chamber remain closely split in the new Congress.

“I think it's a pretty good start. We've got a plan. I think we’ve got to put some — a little more meat on the bones. But it gives us a place to land, and all be kind of on the same page as we go after the last month here,” Perry said.

Asked whether she would support McCarthy for Speaker, Greene told reporters that she was not thinking about the leadership election yet.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) expressed approval of the plan for uniting the conference around a midterm message, but hinted at keeping up pressure on House GOP leadership.

“As someone who's a conservative in the Freedom Caucus, part of my job is also accountability for the Republicans to do what we said we would do,” Roy said. “So, as we unite around a message to take our country back, I'll be making sure that there's some specificity and what that means should we win the majority.”

The plan also does not address some of the biggest demands from the right wing, like the potential of impeaching President Biden.

​​”I think the Republican controlled majority if they want to be successful, especially going at 2024, they'll definitely make that a priority,” said Greene, who has introduced multiple impeachment resolutions against Biden.

McCarthy has watched up close the right-wing turmoil that previously plagued GOP House leadership.

“I’ve learned from the other mistakes,” McCarthy, in a March interview with Punchbowl News, said of former GOP Speakers John Boehner (Ohio) and Paul Ryan (Wis.).

Boehner, for his part, was punished by those in the right flank who publicly challenged him, such as former Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a founding member of the Freedom Caucus which was formed around that time. Meadows was removed from a subcommittee chairmanship after clashing with the Speaker on a procedural vote. 

More procedural moves from Meadows helped propel Boehner to a surprise retirement in 2015, stunning Washington one year after former Virginia Republican Rep. Eric Cantor became the first sitting House majority leader to lose his congressional seat to a political newcomer, and eventual Freedom Caucus member, Dave Brat.

Ryan spent much of 2016 doing a delicate dance around Trump’s candidacy — despite at times getting hammered by the Republican presidential nominee over the course of the election and during his early tenure in the White House before Ryan himself retired. 

The Wisconsin Republican often had to tread between voicing support of his party’s president while disavowing some of Trump’s more inflammatory remarks on immigration and minority groups.

That type of intraparty turmoil seems to have evolved under McCarthy, unlike other previous leaders of the GOP conference.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), another founder of the House Freedom Caucus, challenged McCarthy to lead House Republicans four years ago. But instead of being banished by leadership, he has been elevated. 

Jordan is now ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee and eyeing leading numerous probes as chair of the panel in a majority. He has repeatedly said he is supporting McCarthy for Speaker. 

Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker who was the architect of the 1994 Contract with America that preceded a massive midterm win for the party, had high praise for McCarthy’s handling of the diverse caucus as he walked out of a House GOP meeting unveiling the plan to members.

“He's a much better manager than I was,” Gingrich said. “I was amazed at members who normally find some reason not to be together getting up and saying, ‘We're on the same team.’”

Elise Stefanik predicts at least 40 House GOP women next year

Posted on (Updated by Emily Brooks

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) is focusing on women candidates to boost her party's efforts to retake control of the House, predicting that the number of Republican women in the House will jump next year.

“We are building towards 50,” Stefanik said in a briefing Wednesday about the successes of her Elevate PAC, or E-PAC, that endorses female candidates, predicting that the number of House GOP women will “blow past 40 this cycle.”

The number of Republican women in the House dwindled to just 13 after the 2018 election. But that number more than doubled after the 2020 election, when 32 female Republican representatives won seats, plus two nonvoting delegates. In that cycle, 11 of the 15 seats that Republicans flipped were E-PAC endorsed candidates.

Democrats have 91 women in their House caucus, nearly three times as many as the GOP.

This cycle, Stefanik’s E-PAC has 23 endorsed candidates who are running in open races or challenging a Democratic incumbent. Those range from women in safe Republican seats, like Harriet Hageman, who defeated Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) in a primary last month, to those seeking seats that will be harder for Republicans to win.

While some of the endorsees had broad support from outside Republicans in primaries, others had to put up more of a fight. Karoline Leavitt, a former staff member in the White House press office under former President Trump and then in Stefanik’s congressional office, recently defeated Matt Mowers in a New Hampshire primary race, despite a PAC aligned with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) spending more than $1.5 million in support of Mowers.

“Congresswoman Stefanik was instrumental in my decision to run. And in that early support, it really helped propel us in our primary to be victorious,” Leavitt said.

Stefanik announced last week that she will seek another term as House Republican Conference chairwoman, shutting down months of speculation that she might join the field of three candidates for House majority whip if the House flips to Republican control next year.

But her focus on E-PAC shows that she still has big ambitions, even if she would slide down from the third- to fourth-ranking House Republican in a majority. 

Stefanik said experience helping lead Trump’s defense during his first impeachment, which shot up her national profile, helped her build up a national donor list. That helps her boost the E-PAC candidates — the group says it has helped raise more $1 million directly to GOP women candidates this cycle.

Stefanik’s post-2018 election decision to step back from a role at the National Republican Congressional Committee in order to try to elevate female candidates in primaries was met with some pushback at the time. She defiantly responded that she “wasn’t asking for permission.”

But now, Stefanik says, she has strong support for her cause from her male colleagues, including McCarthy and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.). 

It is not just financial support that E-PAC brings. Stefanik lamented that while Democratic women get “outsized coverage in the media” and “magazine covers,” Republican women don’t get the same.

“They deserve glossy magazines as well,” Stefanik said, adding that E-PAC has booked more than 100 interviews for its candidates.

Increasing the number of Republican women in the House GOP, Stefanik noted, does not necessarily mean that the conference will move in any particular ideological direction. Women are prominent in both the conservative House Freedom Caucus and the more moderate Republican Governance Group.

As the number of women in the conference has grown, Stefanik said they are having “a significant impact” on “both policymaking and policy proposals.”

Republican women have been outspoken on education issues, child care and the baby formula shortage, she said. And those GOP members are also hoping to see more Republican women voices next year.

“Getting more women in our Republican conference is critically important, and Elise is leading the way to make that happen. I know I’m here in Congress because of fellow GOP women like Elise who backed me from day one,” Rep. Young Kim (R-Calif.), who was elected to Congress in 2020, said in a statement.

“The road to take back the House has a lot of Republican women on it.”

Kinzinger on GOP-majority House: They’re going to demand a Biden impeachment vote every week

Posted on (Updated by Mychael Schnell

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) in a new interview predicts that GOP lawmakers will demand a vote to impeach President Biden "every week" if Republicans take control of the House in the midterms.

Kinzinger, a frequent critic of former President Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill, compared previous efforts by congressional Republicans to what he predicts “crazies” will attempt to do under a GOP majority.

“Back before we had all the crazies here — just some crazies — you know, every vote we took, we had to somehow defund ObamaCare. ... You'll remember, right when we took over it was we need to do the omnibus bill, but we're not going to vote for it because it doesn't defund ObamaCare,” Kinzinger said on CNN’s “The Axe Files with David Axelrod,” released Monday.

“That's going to look like child's play in terms of what [Rep.] Marjorie Taylor Greene [R-Ga.] is going to demand of [House GOP Leader] Kevin McCarthy [Calif.]. They're going to demand an impeachment vote on President Biden every week,” he added.

Republicans are widely expected to take control of the House in November, though Democrats are battling to limit the size of a potential GOP majority. According to FiveThirtyEight, Republicans are favored to win control of the lower chamber over Democrats, 71 percent to 29 percent.

If they do secure the majority, a number of Republican lawmakers are preparing plans to impeach Biden over various matters. Some conservative House members have already introduced impeachment articles against the president over his administration's efforts on border enforcement, the COVID-19 pandemic and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan last year, to name a few. 

Kinzinger said a GOP House majority may also try to “make abortion illegal in all circumstances on this omnibus bill.”

The Illinois Republican, who is not running for reelection in November, predicted that McCarthy — the current House minority leader who is expected to become Speaker if Republicans win the lower chamber — will have a difficult time governing because of “crazies” in the GOP conference.

“I think it'll be a very difficult majority for him to govern unless he just chooses to go absolutely crazy with them. In which case you may see the rise of the silent, non-existent moderate Republican that may still exist out there, but I don't know,” he said.

Kinzinger predicted that McCarthy is “not going to be able to do much” and also raised the possibility that the GOP leader would not receive the Speaker's gavel at all, suggesting Trump and members of the conservative Freedom Caucus could push for a more right-leaning leader.

McCarthy was close to the Speakership in 2015 but ultimately dropped out of contention after making a controversial comment about the taxpayer-funded Benghazi Committee.

“I think it's quite possible,” Kinzinger told Axelrod when asked if McCarthy will not be Speaker come January.

“I think if there's, particularly if there's a narrow Republican majority, let's say there's five, a five-seat Republican majority, it only takes five Republicans or six Republicans to come together, deny Kevin the Speakership because they weren't, let's say, [Rep.] Jim Jordan [R-Ohio], where they have this idea that Donald Trump can sit as Speaker. Any of them can do that. And I know these Freedom Caucus members fairly well, and I know that they have no problem turning their back on [McCarthy] and they will,” he added.

He said he would “absolutely love to see” McCarthy not become Speaker in January.

Democrats brace for life with a House GOP majority

Posted on (Updated by Alexander Bolton

Senate Democrats are bracing for the possibility for life under a divided government, with President Biden in office and a strong possibility of a Republican-controlled House.

Democrats hope they can retain their majority in the Senate, where a number of political handicappers say the party is favored. That would give Democrats more leverage and congressional support for Biden over the next two years.

But if the House does fall as expected, lawmakers expect partisan gridlock.

Some Democrats are predicting government shutdowns and standoffs over raising the federal debt limit will take center stage.  

“If Republicans win control of the House, they will not be able to govern. It’ll be a cascading nightmare of dysfunction and horrible for the country and horrible news for anybody who relies on federal funding,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. 

Murphy predicted that if Republicans are in charge of one or both chambers, “it’s probably a series of shutdowns and funding crises.” 

“This new breed of Republicans are anarchists. They don’t really believe government should be funding anything,” he added.  

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the House minority leader who is in line to become Speaker if Republicans win the lower chamber, is more allied with former President Trump than his Senate GOP counterpart, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).  

McCarthy sided with Trump last year when the former president called on Republicans to block legislation to raise the debt limit, which would have put the nation at risk of default.

Not a single House Republican voted to raise the debt ceiling in October and it fell to McConnell and his leadership team and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to provide the votes to keep the United States fulfilling its debt obligations.  

Trump, who retains a strong grip on the Republican base, slammed McConnell for compromising with Democrats, arguing that GOP lawmakers should have sought to paralyze Biden’s agenda.  

Trump presided over a 35-day government shutdown at the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 — the longest in U.S. history — which was triggered by his demand to spend nearly $6 billion to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.  

FiveThirtyEight.com, a political forecasting website, gives Republicans a 7 in 10 chance of winning the House majority and Democrats a 7 in 10 chance of keeping control of the Senate.  

Another Democratic senator who requested anonymity to comment frankly on the likely result of the November election, said if Republicans capture the House, it will yield “a series of investigations” of the Biden administration.  

“Many want to impeach Joe Biden. It would be a recipe for chaos and for gridlock,” the lawmaker said.

Several House conservatives have already introduced articles of impeachment against Biden, alleging “high crimes” related to his handling of border security and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan last year to has management of the coronavirus pandemic.  

Conservatives are signaling they will attempt to block funding for the Internal Revenue Service to hire an estimated 87,000 new employees, which was provided for in the Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats passed in August under the budget reconciliation process.  

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a prominent Trump ally, penned an op-ed for Fox News with Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) urging fellow Republicans to “stop caving to Democrats” and warned “under no circumstances should any Republican in the new majorities next year vote to fund the Democrats’ newly passed army of 87,000 new IRS officials to audit and harass Americans.”  

Some Trump allies still haven’t given up hope of repealing the Affordable Care Act, which was one of Trump’s top domestic priorities after taking office in 2017.  

“If we’re going to repeal and replace ObamaCare — I still think we need to fix our health care system — we need to have the plan ahead of time so that once we get in office, we can implement it immediately, not knock around like we did last time and fail,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who is running for reelection, told Breitbart News Radio earlier this year.  

When Republicans took control of the House after the 2010 midterms, then-Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), whose influence in the party has grown significantly over the last decade, proposed $2.5 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years. His proposed Spending Reduction Act would have cut nondefense discretionary spending dramatically.  

In April of that year, then-President Obama and then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) flirted with a government shutdown before Democrats finally agreed to $39 billion spending cuts in a late-night deal.

The Congress also came perilously close to defaulting on the federal debt in August of 2011, a few months after House Republicans captured the House. Fiscal disaster was averted by a compromise that McConnell and Biden, who was then vice president, helped craft.   

Senate Democrats say they hope such standoffs will be avoided.

“I think we’ve learned that shutdowns really are a lose-lose [proposition,]” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who came to Congress in 2011. “Certainly some House Republicans have learned. Whether all of them or the newly elected ones remains to be seen.” 

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said he’s optimistic about working with House Republicans in the next Congress to pass the annual defense authorization bill. But he expressed concerns that Trump allies in the House will try to undermine the professionalism and political neutrality of the military.  

Trump tried to shake up the Pentagon’s senior ranks and install loyalists into key positions after he lost the 2020 election to Biden, and Reed fears that Trump allies in the House may still have that on their agenda.  

“One of my concerns is less the NDAA, it’s the growing attack on the military as an institution. I just saw where the Arizona candidate for the Senate called for firing all the generals and putting in conservatives. That’s not how we [run] our army. It’s based on competence and experience and the judgment of others, their superior military officers,” Reed said.   

Blake Masters, the Republican candidate for Senate in Arizona, has repeatedly called for the across-the-board firing of generals between August of 2021 and March of this year, according to a recent report by Vice.com.  

Despite the growing Democratic concerns of having to interact with a House Republican majority in 2023, some Democratic senators think they’ll be able to find narrow areas of common ground.  

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) cited bipartisan support for the chips and science bill that passed both chambers this year with bipartisan majorities.  

“Of course there will be areas where we can work together,” he said.  

“They’ll be doing a lot of stuff for show,” he added, anticipating new investigations of the Biden administration. 

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) noted he is working with Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) to restore the pensions of salaried retirees in Delphi who were terminated when General Motors declared bankruptcy in 2009.  

“There will be ways. They’re not all crazy. Some of them are,” he said of House Republicans.  

Brown, however, insisted the political winds are shifting in Democrats’ favor, even in the battle for the House.  

“I think things are changing and these are close races,” he said. “The only thing that would cost us the House is redistricting,” referring to the changes to congressional maps made after the 2020 census.  

House passes bill strengthening whistleblower protections for federal employees

Posted on (Updated by Mychael Schnell

The House passed a bill on Thursday strengthening protections for whistleblowers in the federal government.

The legislation, titled the Whistleblower Protection Improvement Act, passed in a 221-203 vote. Two Republicans — Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) and Nancy Mace (S.C.) — joined all voting Democrats in supporting the measure.

The bill seeks to prevent retaliation against federal employees who expose wrongdoings, including retaliatory investigations. Such wrongdoings can include breaches of the law, mismanagement, abuse of authority or actions that pose a danger to public health.

If the Office of Special Counsel determines that an inspector general referral was retaliatory, however, the measure would require that the special counsel make note of the discovery to the inspector general, who would use that information when deciding whether or not to open or continue an investigation.

Additionally, the bill calls for limiting the disclosure of the identity of whistleblowers, and clarifies that federal government employees — including the president, vice president and congressional lawmakers — are not allowed to hinder or strike back against a whistleblower who provides information to Congress.

“Today’s bipartisan passage of the Whistleblower Protection Improvement Act brings us one step closer to ensuring that any federal employee who steps forward to report wrongdoing is protected from retaliation,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), the sponsor of the bill and the chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said in a statement after the bill passed on Thursday.

“Whistleblowers are the first line of defense to hold those in power accountable. Congress relies on whistleblowers to exercise our constitutional oversight responsibilities, safeguard taxpayer dollars, improve federal programs, and even save lives,” she added.

House passage of the bill came roughly four months after the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General found that Army Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman — the brother of Retired Army Col. Alexander Vindman, who was a key witness in former President Trump’s first impeachment — was likely the target of retaliation from Trump officials.

“We found, based on a preponderance of the evidence, that the Complainant was the subject of unfavorable personnel actions from administration officials,” the office of the inspector general wrote in a statement.

The Vindman brothers raised alarm about Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in July 2019, which led to Trump’s first impeachment. The Pentagon’s report said Alexander Vindman told his concerns to his brother, and the pair then reported the worries to higher authorities.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), ranking member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, argued on the House floor Wednesday that the whistleblower legislation “is a step too far.”

“The whistleblower protection improvement act is a step too far and would help further entrench federal government employees in their job,” he said.

“Whistleblowers in the federal government are covered by some of the most comprehensive protections for employees in the country. Whistleblowers serve a valuable role in our government — especially under an administration like the Biden administration, which is subject to almost no oversight by Congress. But giving this bill a great title, Whistleblower Protection Improvement Act, does not and should not provide cover for the actual requirements and consequences of this bill,” he added.

Comer also referenced Trump’s first impeachment in his argument against the bill.

“In large part this bill is just an excuse to further idolize the people who pushed the sham impeachment against former President Trump,” he said.

— Updated at 7:35 p.m.

Portrait of late Rep. Elijah Cummings unveiled at the Capitol

Posted on (Updated by Mychael Schnell

At portrait of the late Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) was unveiled at the Capitol on Wednesday.

Cummings, who was first elected to the House in 1996, died in October 2019 at the age of 68. He was serving as chairman of the powerful House Oversight and Reform Committee at the time of his death.

Baltimore-based artist Jerrell Gibbs painted Cummings’s portrait, which will hang in the Rayburn House Office Building’s Oversight and Reform Committee hearing room.

According to the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), commissioning an official portrait is a customary honor for congressional lawmakers who serve as chairs of committees.

Cummings, who died during his 13th term in Congress, lay in state in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall. His office at the time said he died “due to complications concerning longstanding health challenges.”

The son of a sharecropper, Cummings was born on Jan. 18, 1951, in Baltimore. He graduated from Howard University and received a law degree from the University of Maryland. Before serving in Congress, the Maryland Democrat spent 13 years in the state House of Delegates.

Cummings was a frequent figure in the news in the weeks before his death for his involvement in the House impeachment inquiry focused on then-President Trump. As the chairman of the Oversight and Reform Committee, Cummings was one of the top three lawmakers leading the inquiry.

A number of lawmakers delivered remarks honoring Cummings at the portrait unveiling on Wednesday, including Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.).

“He was my Baltimore brother,” Pelosi, who was born in the Maryland city, said at the ceremony on Wednesday.

“He was so astute, so smart, so wise, so strategic and the rest, and that's why he made such a big difference. He was a leader of towering integrity. Everybody knows that. A man whose life embodied the American dream,” Pelosi added, calling him “the north star of the House of Representatives.”

The Speaker noted that the room where the portrait unveiling took place is the same location where the Jan. 6 House select committee has held its public hearings.

“Elijah said, ‘When we’re dancing with the angels, when we’re dancing with the angels, what would we have thought that we could have done to make the future better for our children, for our democracy?’ That’s what they’re doing in this room. When we’re not honoring Elijah directly, we are indirectly for his patriotism,” she said.

The Speaker said she still has Cummings on her speed dial, adding, “I can’t separate myself.”

“I go to it frequently and just try to think of what he would be thinking of what is going on,” she added.

—Updated Thursday at 4:32 p.m.

Elise Stefanik to seek second term as House GOP chair, not whip

Posted on (Updated by Emily Brooks

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) announced that she will seek another term as House Republican Conference chair on Tuesday, ending months of speculation that she might seek the position of House majority whip if Republicans win control of the chamber.

“For the next 56 days, I’m laser-focused on working to ensure we earn a historic Republican Majority. I am proud to have unified the entire Republican Conference around our country in crisis message and shattered fundraising records as House GOP Conference Chair raising over $10M for candidates and committees this cycle. With the broad support of NY21 and my House GOP colleagues, I intend to run for Conference Chair in the next Congress,” Stefanik said in a statement on Tuesday.

Stefanik had long held her cards close to the vest on her plans for next year, often saying that she was focused on winning back the majority. 

Her announcement of her intention to seek a second term as House GOP chair came shortly after news leaked that Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) planned to host an event on Thursday to formally launch his own bid, which his office confirmed to The Hill.

Donalds, one of only two Black House Republicans in the current Congress, told The Hill Tuesday evening that he is still running for Chair despite Stefanik's announcement.

"If you're going to ask Republicans who's the best messenger on our conference, I think I'm one of the best there," Donalds said. "As a conservative who has worked on policy at the state level, now here, I think I have the necessary tools to help our conference in the next evolution after the November elections."

Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa), another first-term member who was reported to be interested in the conference chair position if Stefanik did not run again, threw her support behind Stefanik.

“@RepStefanik has done an incredible job as our Conference chair and I’m proud to be on her team and support her. We will continue to work together to take back the House in November and get our country back on the right track,” Hinson said in a tweet responding to news that Stefanik plans to run again.

So did Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), the vice chair of the House Republican Conference, who had also been reported as a potential pick for chair if Stefanik did not run.

“Serving as Vice Chairman of House Republicans alongside Chairwoman Stefanik has been one of the great highlights of my time in Congress. I look forward to continuing our work together to retake the House majority this fall by promoting the Republican agenda, and I fully support her bid to serve another term as Conference Chair,” Johnson said in a statement.

Stefanik first took over the position, tasked with leading the House Republican message, in May 2021 after the conference ousted Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from the position over her vocal criticism of former President Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

Stefanik, in contrast, has been a staunch defender and ally of Trump and first gained prominence as part of Trump's defense team during his first impeachment in 2020. She has proudly adopted the label of “ultra-MAGA” as Democrats and President Biden argue that “MAGA Republicans” are a threat to democracy.

After the FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last month, she called the episode a “dark day in American history” and accused the Biden administration of “weaponizing this department against their political opponents.” 

If Republicans win back the House and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) becomes Speaker and Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) moves up to the position of majority leader, that leaves open the No. 3 position of House majority whip.

Stefanik’s high profile and status as the No. 3 House Republican led to speculation about whether she would climb up the leadership ladder, but she would have joined a crowded field of contenders for the whip position.

Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, has been careful not to formally launch a bid yet.

“There's nothing to run for until you win. I'm focusing on Nov. 8,” he told The Hill in an interview last week when asked about the whip race.

Reps. Drew Ferguson, currently the chief deputy whip, is also in the mix as a potential contender for the position, and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), current chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, is also weighing a run for whip.

One senior Republican source argued that the reaction to Stefanik's announcement showed her strength as a politician.

“It took Stefanik less than one hour to lock down the votes of the entire leadership team and 2/3 of the entire conference. And she hasn’t even hit the floor yet,” the source said.

Spokespeople for McCarthy and Emmer confirmed that they will each support Stefanik for the position, while one for Scalise did not immediately respond to an inquiry.

McCarthy brushed off the stakes of a match-up between Stefanik and Donalds.

"I don't think it'll be a race," McCarthy told reporters Tuesday evening. "Elise has done an excellent job and will continue to be Conference Chair."

At the time of her election in March 2021, Stefanik garnered criticism from some in the hard-line House Freedom Caucus for not having a conservative enough voting record. But a year into her tenure, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), the caucus's former chairman, said she has been a “step up” from Cheney.

Stefanik has aimed to show influence in other House GOP races. 

She endorsed controversial businessman Carl Paladino in the race to represent New York’s 23rd District when Rep. Chris Jacobs (R) abruptly ended his reelection bid over backlash to his support for an assault weapons ban.

Paladino, who has apologized for once inadvertently emailing racist remarks about former President Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama to a local outlet, lost that primary race last month to New York GOP Chairman Nick Langworthy. 

And in the Republican primary for New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, she endorsed her 25-year-old former aide Karoline Leavitt while McCarthy and Scalise backed Matt Mowers, a former Trump appointee in the State Department.

Updated 7:47 p.m.

Violent threats against lawmakers have Congress on edge

Posted on (Updated by Mike Lillis

Rep. G.K. Butterfield was proud to be in Congress. Some years ago, the veteran Democrat installed a vanity message on his congressional license plate, broadcasting the district he represents: North Carolina 1.

Those days are over.

In recent years, the number of menacing threats against sitting members of Congress has ballooned, forcing the Capitol Police to launch thousands of investigations; prompting a flood of new funding for lawmaker security back home and in Washington; and impelling lawmakers to take remarkable precautions to ensure they don't become the next target of political violence. 

For Butterfield, that meant taking steps to become more anonymous when he's out in public.

"I've taken the congressional license tags off of my car, because I don't want to be identified publicly. It was right after Jan. 6," Butterfield said before the House left Washington for the long summer recess.

"I used to be proud to display the plate, had No. 1 on my plate for the 1st District — North Carolina 1," he continued. "Used to be a time when people would pull up beside me at the stoplight and give me the thumbs up. But now it's different."

The source of the concern is not merely anecdotal. Over the past half-decade, the number of threat investigations launched by the U.S. Capitol Police has skyrocketed, from 3,939 in 2017 to 9,625 in 2021 — a spike of almost 150 percent, according to numbers provided by the department.

As members of Congress head into a long Labor Day weekend of parades, barbecues and other district events — a holiday marking the unofficial launch of the final leg of public campaigning ahead of November's midterm elections — they seem to be keenly leery of what they might encounter. 

"The threat level has been elevated," Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the select committee investigating last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol, said Friday. "There has been a coarsening of discourse, and a perceived relaxation in inhibitions people would have about attacking public officials."

Raskin spoke Friday while flanked by a security detail matching those assigned to each member of the Jan. 6 investigative panel.

The spike in lawmaker threats has coincided with increasingly personal and bitter attack lines stemming from the Trump era, with Democrats maintaining that the blame falls squarely on the former president and his fiery rhetoric against perceived political enemies.

“We hear — you’ve heard it — more and more talk about violence as an acceptable political tool in this country. It’s not. It can never be an acceptable tool,” President Biden said Thursday night in Philadelphia, where he castigated Trump and those who do not condemn violence as "a threat to democracy."

“We can’t be pro-insurrectionist and pro-American. They’re incompatible,” Biden added.

Trump’s supporters have rushed to his defense, saying accusations that the former president encourages violence are merely political attacks designed to hurt his chances of returning to the White House in 2024.

Attacks aimed at members of Congress have targeted Republicans as well, they note, including recently when Rep. Lee Zeldin (R) was assaulted on stage while speaking at a campaign stop in New York for his gubernatorial bid.

Zeldin escaped largely unscathed, though other attacks have gone much farther. In 2017, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) was shot on a baseball field during a GOP practice in northern Virginia, sending him to the hospital with critical injuries.

In another more recent incident, an armed man was arrested near Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's home in the middle of the night in June after making death threats. In that case, Republicans accused Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) of encouraging the situation when he warned Kavanaugh, in 2020, that the justice would “pay the price” if he rolled back abortion rights. 

“Rhetoric that incites violence toward any elected or appointed member of the three branches of our constitutional government is dangerous and condemnable,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), former head of the far-right Freedom Caucus, said after the June incident.

Lawmakers who are critical of Trump remain among those most frequently targeted for violence. The long and diverse list includes Republicans who voted for an infrastructure bill he opposed; Democrats who managed the former president’s impeachments; Republicans who supported his ouster after the Jan. 6 Capitol attack; and most recently the nine House lawmakers on the select committee investigating the 2021 riot, all of whom have round-the-clock security details.

Rachel Kleinfeld, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Republicans critical of Trump are particularly prominent targets because they’re viewed to be disloyal in the eyes of the MAGA faithful. 

“People who show that there's a way to be a conservative and not be part of the MAGA faction are in the targets because that's the most threatening group,” Kleinfeld said. “You see that in every country where you start having this kind of factional violence is that, what's called ‘in-group moderates’ — who might not be moderate in their policy beliefs, but who don't believe in violence — are the first to be targeted.”

After five years of steady threat increases on Capitol Hill, it’s unclear if 2022 will continue the trend. The Capitol Police reported opening “roughly 1,820 cases” between Jan. 1 and March 24 — on pace to top 8,000 incidents for the year, which would be well below the figure for both 2020 and 2021. But the department is now withholding the release of incremental figures and instead will provide annual numbers at the end of each year. The change, a spokesperson said, is designed to curb “confusion” surrounding the statistics.

The figures represent incidents of both “concerning comments and direct threats,” a determination guided by the Supreme Court, which has defined threats to be “statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.”

Some incidents are more clear-cut than others. 

In July, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), one of two Republicans on the Jan. 6 select committee, released a compilation of profanely violent threats made by phone to his office. This week, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), who served as one of the managers of Trump’s second impeachment, released a similar audio message from a man threatening to come to Swalwell’s office with a gun for the purpose of assassinating him. And a number of other lawmakers have comparable stories, even if they haven’t released the threats publicly. 

"There's an escalation,” said Rep. Juan Vargas (D-Calif.). “We have some new interns and they're shocked [at] the level of animosity that people talk about when they call us — the level of hatred and threats. They were absolutely stunned, and I said, 'No, that's what we live with. And it's getting worse.'” 

In July, the House Sergeant at Arms announced new funding designed to protect lawmakers from the enhanced threats: $10,000 to install alarms and other systems to bolster the security of their homes.  

One House Democrat, who spoke anonymously so as not to become a greater target, said that’s not all: Local law enforcers also monitor the family house. 

"We have a police car that comes once in the morning, and once at night,” the lawmaker said. “It's just not a time when everyone feels safe.”

Rebecca Beitsch contributed.

House conservatives prep plans to impeach Biden

Posted on (Updated by Mike Lillis

Republicans hoping to seize control of the House in November are already setting their sights on what is, for many of them, a top priority next year: impeaching President Biden. 

A number of rank-and-file conservatives have already introduced impeachment articles in the current Congress against the president. They accuse Biden of committing "high crimes" in his approach to a range of issues touching on border enforcement, the coronavirus pandemic and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

Those resolutions never had a chance of seeing the light of day, with Democrats holding a narrow control of the lower chamber. But with Republicans widely expected to win the House majority in the midterms, many of those same conservatives want to tap their new potential powers to oust a president they deem unfit. Some would like to make it a first order of business.

“I have consistently said President Biden should be impeached for intentionally opening our border and making Americans less safe,” said Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.). “Congress has a duty to hold the President accountable for this and any other failures of his Constitutional responsibilities, so a new Republican majority must be prepared to aggressively conduct oversight on day one.”

The conservative impeachment drive is reminiscent of that orchestrated by liberals four years ago, as Democrats took control of the House in 2019 under then-President Trump. At the time, a small handful of vocal progressives wanted to impeach Trump, largely over accusations that he’d obstructed a Justice Department probe into Russian ties to his 2016 campaign. The idea was repeatedly rejected by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), not least out of fear that it would alienate voters in tough battleground districts. 

The tide turned when a whistleblower accused Trump of pressuring a foreign power to find dirt on his political opponent — a charge that brought centrist Democrats onto the impeachment train. With moderates on board, Pelosi launched a formal impeachment inquiry in September of 2019, eight months after taking the Speaker’s gavel. Three months later, the House impeached Trump on two counts related to abusing power.

The difference between then and now is that liberals, in early 2019, were fighting a lonely battle with scant support. This year, heading into the midterms, dozens of conservatives have either endorsed Biden’s impeachment formally, or have suggested they’re ready to support it. 

At least eight resolutions to impeach Biden have been offered since he took office: Three related to his handling of the migrant surge at the southern border; three targeting his management of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year; one denouncing the eviction moratorium designed to help renters during the pandemic; and still another connected to the overseas business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden.

Those proposals will expire with the end of this Congress. But some of the sponsors are already vowing to revisit them quickly next year. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), the lead sponsor of four of the impeachment resolutions, is among them. 

“She believes Joe Biden should have been impeached as soon as he was sworn in, so of course she wants it to happen as soon as possible," Nick Dyer, a Greene spokesman, said Monday in an email. 

A noisy impeachment push from the GOP’s right flank could create headaches for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), the Republican leader in line to be Speaker, and other party brass just as the 2024 presidential cycle heats up. 

On the one hand, impeaching Biden could alienate moderate voters and hurt the GOP at the polls, as was the case in 1998 following the impeachment of President Clinton. Already, GOP leaders like Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) are throwing cold water on the impeachment talk, suggesting it could damage Republicans politically in the midterms. 

On the other hand, ignoring the conservatives’ impeachment entreaties might spark a revolt from a Republican base keen to avenge the Democrats’ two impeachments of Trump, who remains the most popular national figure in the GOP. McCarthy knows well the perils of angering the far right: The Freedom Caucus had nudged Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) into an early retirement in 2015, deeming him insufficiently conservative, then prevented McCarthy from replacing him.

McCarthy’s office did not respond Monday to a request for comment. 

The challenge facing Republican leaders in a GOP-controlled House will be to demonstrate an aggressive posture toward the administration, to appease conservatives, without alienating moderate voters in the process. 

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) appears to be walking that line. Last summer, she called Biden “unfit to serve as president,” but stopped short of endorsing his impeachment. 

Stefanik’s office did not respond to requests for comment. 

Another strategy GOP leaders may adopt is to impeach a high-ranking member of the administration, but not the president himself. Several resolutions have been introduced to do just that, separately targeting Vice President Harris, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick Garland. 

McCarthy, during a visit to the southern border earlier in the year, had floated the idea of impeaching Mayorkas if he is found to be “derelict” in his job of securing the border. And the concept has plenty of support among conservatives.   

“Mayorkas and Garland have purposefully made our country less safe, politicized their departments, and violated the rule of law. In some instances, they have instructed their subordinates to disobey our laws. That is unacceptable,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who has endorsed a number of impeachment resolutions this year, said in an email. 

“Next January I expect the House to pursue my impeachment articles against Mayorkas as well as Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s impeachment articles that I co-sponsored against Attorney General Merrick Garland,” Biggs added.

Still, conservatives like Biggs, the former head of the Freedom Caucus, also want to go straight to the top by impeaching Biden. And it remains unclear if anything less than that will appease the GOP’s restive right flank — one that’s expected to grow next year with the arrival of a number of pro-Trump conservatives vowing to take on anyone they consider to be part of Washington’s political establishment. 

Some Republicans said the decision whether to endorse impeachment next year will simply hinge on events. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), for instance, has endorsed two impeachment resolutions this cycle related to the Afghanistan withdrawal, but “has made no decisions yet on supporting impeachment articles next year with Republicans in the majority,” according to spokesman Austin Livingston. 

“He will wait to see what those efforts look like, specifically how they align with Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution," Livingston said, referring to the section outlining Congress’s impeachment powers. 

But others are eager to use a GOP majority to hold Biden’s feet to the fire. And that energy doesn’t appear to be fleeting, particularly when it comes to the border crisis, which could very well remain a hot topic six months from now. 

Rep. Mary Miller (R), a strong Trump supporter who recently won an Illinois primary over the more moderate Rep. Rodney Davis (R), said Biden should be removed “for purposely ignoring our immigration laws.”

“Biden and Harris have failed their most basic duty,” Miller said, “which is ensuring the safety of the American people through the security of our borders.”

Progressives face down disconnect: policy wins, electoral losses

Posted on (Updated by Hanna Trudo

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that the PAC Protect Our Future has only spent money in Democratic primaries.

Progressives are facing down a seeming disconnect over what’s politically achievable in Washington and what wins elections back home.

On one hand, they’ve won major policy battles from the White House to Capitol Hill this month, moving Democrats beyond what many thought was possible to accomplish under President Biden. 

On the other, they’ve struggled to translate those victories to the campaign trail and are coming out of the primary season suffering damaging losses and bruised confidence.

In November, those two realities will be put to the test. 

“Progressives continue to win the battle of ideas, we just don’t always win elections,” said Max Berger, a Democratic strategist with the social justice organization More Perfect Union and a veteran of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass) presidential campaign.

After more than a year of setbacks, liberals have had a good few weeks in Washington.

They were pleasantly surprised by the multibillion-dollar investment they secured toward climate measures from the Senate and White House and were equally happy when certain tax reform and health care provisions were included in the Inflation Reduction Act. They saw the scope of the package as proof they can get much of what they want with enough pressure. 

Liberals put student loan relief high on the president’s radar early in his administration and their push persisted even as he tackled massive crises, from inflation and gas prices to Russia’s war in Ukraine. 

They argued that Biden could cancel borrowers’ debt through executive action, bypassing the ideological disputes of Democrats in the Senate that have stalled his agenda at other critical junctures. 

And after Biden announced a plan this week to cancel $10,000 in debt for those making less than $125,000 and double that for Pell Grant recipients, some felt even more optimistic about the power of the progressive movement.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said her flank had been “doggedly pursuing this,” for months, dating back to a conversation with Biden in March. She has maintained a line to the White House on the issue.

Those accomplishments have the left wing swatting back at what they see as uncredible critiques that their goals aren’t realistic.

Moderates have made the case that independents in particular find progressive policies unappealing. They fought to trim the price tag on earlier versions of Biden’s climate and spending package as well as on certain health care and education priorities. Some centrist lawmakers lobbied against student loan forgiveness up until the final decision, arguing that it would further increase inflation.

But on Thursday, liberals got more good news. A Gallup poll taken in the wake of the series of progressive wins showed the president’s approval rating jumping to the highest spot in a year — 44 percent — in part due to an increase in support from independents.

Still, for all progressives' celebrations on the policy front, they saw plenty of disappointment at the ballot box.

One state with hit the left particularly hard: New York. Home to “Squad” members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) and Jamaal Bowman (D), the state is usually seen as a bastion of support for progressive lawmakers.

But Democratic Trump impeachment counsel Dan Goldman, who was seen as more moderate, is projected to win the primary in the state’s 10th Congressional District, besting a field of progressive candidates including Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), who ran in the 10th District instead of the 17th. And Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) dispatched a progressive challenger by 30 points.

Earlier in the year, former state Sen. Nina Turner, a co-chair of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) presidential campaign, lost for a second time to Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio), who had the support of the party establishment. And in a closely watched primary in Texas, Jessica Cisneros, a young activist and attorney lost by a hair to the establishment’s choice, conservative Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar. Cuellar’s supporters — and congressional leadership who weighed into the race — argued a progressive could not win his district.

Strategists attributed many of the losses to the amount of money backing more moderate candidates.

“Fragmentation plays a big part, as divided lefty fields opened up paths for ... Goldman,” said Max Burns, a Democratic strategist who worked on the New York race. “But you just can't talk about progressives' primary hardships without addressing the tens of millions of dollars in corporate dark money parachuted into major races.”

The worry over so-called dark money has been weighing heavily on progressives this cycle. The left has been drastically outspent by special interest groups that poured money into several important races to defeat them. 

Protect Our Future, the political action committee affiliated with tech megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried, has spent money in Democratic primaries, and a PAC called Mainstream Democrats has worked to protect moderate incumbents, including Cuellar.

Progressives also say the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has been spending more aggressively and out-in-the-open this cycle.

And Goldman, a Levi Strauss & Co. heir, angered his progressive challengers by pouring millions of his own money into his campaign.

Bill Neidhardt, a Democratic operative with Left Flank Strategies and former campaign spokesperson for Sanders, agreed with the damning influence he sees outside spending factoring into party primaries this cycle. 

“Much of it comes down to big money in politics, with conservative Democrats using corporate PACs, or even self-funding in the case of millionaires like Dan Goldman,” said Neidhardt.

“But I would also challenge the notion that progressives are coming up short. The Congressional Progressive Caucus is going to be stronger than ever next Congress with new members who beat out moderates like Becca Balint, Greg Casar, Delia Ramirez and Summer Lee,” he added.

One notable sleeper came from Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a 25-year-old Sanders-backed gun control activist who won the primary for Florida’s 10th Congressional District on Tuesday. The district’s blue tilt means he will likely become one of the youngest members of Congress next year.

And on the Senate side, voters in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin opted to nominate two progressives — Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes — to help Democrats with their quest to keep their majority.

“The candidates have gotten a lot better honestly,” said Berger, noting that left wing groups like Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party have fine-tuned their operations to recruit and train contenders to mount credible challenges. “There’s more people who have experience who have decided to take the lead.”

Some progressives also see the potential in future contests. Even if Democrats lose the House and their collective legislative power diminishes, there are signs of interest for a more liberal candidate than Biden or other possible contenders in 2024.

According to a new USA TODAY-Ipsos poll released on Friday, Sanders leads in favorability among almost two dozen candidates in a hypothetical match-up. 

“Progressives are more popular than they appear,” said Burns. “And even with a torrent of money, corporate-backed candidates are still barely squeaking by.”