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Category: Pure Politics

Inauguration, Confirmation Hearings, Oh My!

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The House and Senate are back from the long weekend recognizing the late Civil Rights leader, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and already Congress is at work — though arguably the politics didn’t stop this weekend.

The Senate is gearing up for a second round of fights over President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees as Republicans race to clear his picks ahead of Friday’s Inauguration of the 45th President.

Eight nominees are heading to Capitol Hill this week to face what is expected to be an hours-long grilling from lawmakers. Democrats face an uphill battle to block any of Trump’s picks, which require only 50 votes to clear the Senate.  While Democrats have not publicly said they would block nominees from getting confirmed quickly, they can use procedural levers to drag out a nomination for days and have stressed that a nominee’s paperwork must be complete — lawmakers need enough time to review it and ask follow-up questions.

Highlights include:

On Tuesday, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) and Betsy DeVos, Trump’s picks for Interior and Education, respectively, will both get hearings.

On Wednesday, hearings for Wilbur Ross, Trump’s Commerce secretary; Tom Price, his Health and Human Services pick; Scott Pruitt, who has been tapped to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); and Nikki Haley, named to be U.N. ambassador.

On Thursday, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, tapped to lead the Department of Energy, and Steve Mnuchin, his pick for Treasury, will get hearings.

Trump’s Inauguration is three days away. The Washington Post has a good article on what to expect as well as a (growing) list of Members that won’t attend.

Flake Issues Annual “Waste Book”

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Earlier this week, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) released his annual “waste book,” a list of 50 examples of federal spending which he believes are wasteful. As in the past, this year’s list includes plenty of activities supported by research agencies.

The document is available here.

Senate Passes Budget with ACA Repeal Instructions

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Early Thursday morning, Senators voted 51-48 to adopt the FY2017 budget resolution, with Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) casting the only Republican vote against it. With just 51 votes, the Senate moves forward with plans to repeal the ACA while avoiding a filibuster from Senate Democrats. Ultimately, the Senate considered 19 amendments before the final vote — and stymied each one, mostly through procedural votes.

The key amendment of the vote-a-rama was an amendment offered by Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), who was joined by other moderate GOP Senators, would delay an initial deadline to write legislation to repeal the 2010 health care law,. The amendment was ultimately withdrawn without a vote.

The Corker Amendment would have pushed back the Jan. 27 deadline for four House and Senate committees to write legislation to repeal the health care law, the sole purpose of the budget resolution under consideration. A vote on the amendment would have been a key indicator of where Senators stood on a growing debate among Republicans about how quickly Congress should repeal the law, especially without a clear replacement ready to go.

The FY 2017 budget resolution includes reconciliation instructions with the purpose of repealing the health care law, which would occur through separate legislation.

 

ACA Repeal

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Health care, taxes, and a regulatory reform will dominate the Hill during Trump’s first 100 days in office, and the partisan maneuvering begins today. Both President Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Mike Pence headed to Capitol Hill to discuss the health care law this morning.

Obama’s goal is to rally Democrats.

Vice President-elect Pence met with the Republican conference, which is still sorting through which elements of the ACA to preserve and how long the transition period to a replacement plan should last. Conservatives, like the House Freedom Caucus, want as little as a six-month transition period. Other Members are mulling as long as a four-year-delay, which would keep elements of Obamacare in place past the 2020 elections. During the meeting, Pence announced the incoming Administration’s two track approach of using Congress as well as Executive Order. 

There’s already questions about the timeline for repealing the Affordable Care Act because of the taxes used to fund the law, like the investment tax hike on the wealthy, the medical device tax and the Cadillac tax on expensive employer-provided health plans. Discussions remain on-going about how to best unravel the roughly $1 trillion worth of tax increases in the health care law. House and Senate Republicans will not know what the new baseline is for tax reform until those decisions are made.

The Senate voted to move ahead in debating a FY 2017 budget resolution that would include reconciliation instructions repealing the ACA. The budget instructs House and Senate committees to come up with a repeal bill by January 27th. The motion to proceed to the resolution required only a simple majority vote and the tally was 51-48 as voting continued. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) voted no. The Senate is expected to consider the resolution the remainder of the week, and the House is expected to pass it prior to the Inauguration on January 20th. It should be noted that the President does not need to sign the resolution, and it does not become law. Rather binding on Congress. 

Perry as Energy Secretary

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President-elect Trump has reportedly picked former Texas Governor Rick Perry to lead the Department of Energy.

During his time of governor, Perry, who succeeded 41st President George W. Bush as Texas’ top official in 2000, preached an “all-the-above” energy mix, including contributions from oil and gas, wind energy, carbon capture and storage technology, and nuclear power.