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Category: On the Hill

Results…and Still Counting

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There are still many races that are still too close to call this morning, which was expected. It happened in 2012, 2014 and 2016. It’s happened twice already this year.

That said, many races have been called. The Democrats have 220 seats, exactly two more seats than needed for a majority and a gain of 27 seats, while Republicans have 193. There are currently just over 30 House seats yet to be called; if the current leader in all of them ends up winning, the House will be 227 Democrats, 208 Republicans. House Democrats gained in states like New York, California, Kansas, Iowa, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and Oklahoma.

The Republican majority in the Senate got stronger with wins in Indiana, Florida, and Missouri. In the Senate there are still two races outstanding in Montana and Arizona, while Mississippi is going to have a runoff. Republicans lead in both those races; if the current leader ends up winning, the Senate will have 46 Democrats, 54 Republicans. Democrats were always looking at a challenging year as they were defending more seats and many in conservative states.

Democrats made significant pickups across the nation at the Governor’s office gaining seats in Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Nevada, Kansas, and Maine. If they current leader ends up winning, there will be 23 Democratic and 27 Republican governors.

In some contentious races, like in Georgia and Mississippi, there is a possibility that no candidate will receive a majority of votes, kicking in special rules to decide the election at a later date. Although currently Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp is running just barely above the total needed for a recount. Mississippi looks likely to head to a runoff.  Florida has also triggered an automatic recount between Senate candidates Sen. Ben Nelson (D) and Gov. Rick Scott (R).

In Washington state, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-WA-05) defeated challenger Lisa Brown in a hotly contested race. Technically, two races are still outstanding this morning, but Rep. Jaime Herrera Beulter (R-WA-03) is expected to be re-elected and Dr. Kim Schier (D) is expected to be declared the winner over Dino Rossi to represent WA-08 in an open contest. Otherwise, the current Washington delegation was handily elected.

It’s Election Day!

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Happy Election Day!

In a much hyped and talked about mid-term election, Americans are going to the polls for some exciting local and national races. Will the Democrats win the House? How many new Members of Congress will Washington state have? Will the Republicans gain seats in the Senate? Will most of our nation’s governors be in the Democratic party? We will start to find out tonight. However, given the peculiarities and peccadilloes of each state’s elections laws, we might not know who has won many elections for weeks.

Washington state has some very interesting races being watched on the national stage, and with Congressman Reichert’s retirement, we will have at least one new Member of Congress representing WA-08. Track the results for all Washington races here.

For national races, the New York Times will has it’s very popular Needle on their home page tracking election results again this year.  CNN will also have live updates. The Washington Post also has a fun tracker. Do not expect poll returns until later in the day. The Times has a story on when polls close.

For those of you that have been intensely interested in this election (Beto! Stacey Abrams! Dino Rossi!)  just keep in mind, the forecasts and models were very wrong last year.  It’s raining in every state east of the Mississippi River, and that’s sure to impact turnout.

For those intensely interested in what’s happening across the country at every level, here’s a handy-dandy election tracker that has all high-target political races this election.

 

Federal Relations will update this post as necessary throughout the day and have an election recap tomorrow.

 

 

 

Most of August Recess for Senate Canceled

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced today that he is cancelling most of the traditional month-long August recess.  Under the new schedule, the Senate would have a week-long recess at the beginning of August but would return to Washington for the rest of the month.

Read more about McConnell’s decision here, here, and here.  It is still possible that the August recess could be extended.

The House has not announced any changes to its August schedule.

Immigration Stalled Again

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The Senate on Thursday effectively failed to move forward with any of four immigration proposals put forward today. This included a Republican proposal backed by President Donald Trump that would grant 1.8 million “Dreamers” a path to citizenship and provide $25 billion for a border wall and security improvements.

The action came on a 39-60 vote to limit debate on an amendment by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-IA), to an unrelated bill (HR 2579) related to the Administration’s “Four Pillars” proposal  Sixty votes were needed to invoke cloture.

Grassley’s proposal mirrored Trump’s framework to provide a path to citizenship for Dreamers brought to the United States as children in exchange for border security funding. It would also end family-based immigration or “chain migration” and phase out a diversity lottery program. Democrats considered the restrictions on family-based immigration a nonstarter.

The Senate earlier rejected three other immigration proposals, including a bipartisan deal by 16 mostly centrist Senators, calling themselves the “Common Sense Caucus,” that Trump threatened to veto because it did not do enough to limit family-based immigration.

All amendments failed this afternoon.

There was no clear path forward in the House for any of these proposals.

Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence Testifies in Congress

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Today Dr. Oren Etzioni, CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence and UW Professor of Computer Science, was invited by the subcommittee chair to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Technology in the first of two committee meetings slated to discuss the future of artificial intelligence. Dr. Etzioni was joined by experts from Intel, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and NVIDIA. Check out the hearing on YouTube.