Weekly Plurus Strategies Update on Voting Rights, Appropriations, BBB, and Other Activity in Washington

Voting Rights/Filibuster Reform

Following last week’s January 6 anniversary, this week saw the White House’s full pivot to voting rights and filibuster reform to maximize messaging opportunities around the MLK Day holiday. Like many pro-voting groups across the country, we worry this effort might be too little too late and ultimately not bear much fruit.

Earlier today, President Biden met with the Democratic caucus on voting rights as Leader Schumer moved forward with his plan to hold a vote on elections legislation and attempt to advance filibuster reform. Today the House is voting to add the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to an unrelated NASA bill that has already passed the Senate. The House vote will be received in the Senate as a message, procedurally allowing it to evade an initial GOP filibuster so that it can be debated on the floor. 60 votes will still be needed for cloture, which ultimately means these Democratic bills are truly dead-on-arrival in the Senate. The idea is that Leader Schumer might use the failed cloture to vote to reignite ongoing conversation in the Democratic caucus about rules changes. However, any rules change would require all 50 Democrats to vote together, which is already a tall order when Members are absent due to COVID.

While both Sens. Manchin and Sinema have made clear that they support the Democratic voting rights bills, both have reaffirmed in the past 24 hours that they oppose changing the Senate’s filibuster rules to the pass them. It is worth pointing out that although these Members receive most of the attention, there are others in the caucus, including fellow moderates, such as Sens. Tester and Kelly, as well as other Senate institutionalists, who have signaled they too have reservations about tweaking the filibuster. The stakes are high for President Biden as he continues to struggle to unite Democrats to advance his broader domestic policy agenda. The president appeared to leave the caucus meeting defeated.

Our instincts tell us that the filibuster is here to stay, at least in some form, although the way things play out might be fodder for continuing conversations about rules changes that could “improve how the Senate functions” – something both Sens. Manchin and Sinema have signaled they could be open to. However, what this looks like remains uncertain. Our best guess is that the most Democrats might accomplish is a return to the talking filibuster, which may increase the burden but not deter bill opponents from holding up legislation on the floor. Regardless of how Democrats proceed, they will need to be wary of what Leader McConnell has dubbed the “post-nuclear Senate,” and how any rules changes might come back to harm them when the chamber ultimately flips control. It’s not unconceivable the midterm elections could leave President Biden with a Congress where Republicans are in the majority in both houses, affording them the opportunity to hold votes that undermine him on legacy issues.

Aside from the procedural debate, we anticipate the substantive work on voting rights legislation may continue, although it is likely to be narrower in scope than the sweeping voting rights bills that have remain stalled for months. Already, we have seen several smaller efforts popping up aimed at tackling election subversion through Electoral Count Act (ECA). Sens. Collins and Manchin are leading a bipartisan group that is eyeing ECA legislation and we see it being difficult to budge Sen. Manchin on the filibuster until this effort runs its course and fails. Sen. King is also thought to be working on an ECA bill, as are Members of the January 6 Committee. Democratic leadership has yet to endorse these efforts, although the winds could shift if this week’s votes demonstrate that a comprehensive voting rights overhaul is off the table.

FY22 Appropriations/Emergency Supplemental

As the February 18 appropriations deadline nears, the top appropriators have been meeting with their respective leadership ahead of a meeting of the “four corners” today. Reports from today’s meeting suggest that it was “constructive.” Though a short-term CR may be necessary, we are hearing that committee staff who were largely pens down during the holiday break are now beginning the real work of trying to piece together an omnibus or potential minibus packages. Of course, the sticking points continue to be policy riders and anomalies, and this comes even before the difficult task of striking an agreement on topline spending levels.

Our instincts tell us that increased defense spending and earmarks may not be enough to get Republicans on board with finishing up FY22 appropriations by the February 18 timeline. With the SOTU planned for March 1, we can’t see how Republicans would be willing to give Biden any sort of win before this date.

Another complicating factor is the signal from Leader Hoyer that the White House may request a supplemental appropriations bill. Although White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients has said the administration has the funding that is needed to fight the omicron variant, it is possible that there will ultimately be an emergency package that includes more COVID relief, as well as funding for responding to recent natural disasters, such as the tornadoes in Kentucky and the wildfires in Colorado. A supplemental could put appropriators in a tricky situation, especially given that the FY22 bills are still not finished, the FY23 budget request looms on the horizon, and legislative progress on President Biden’s domestic policy agenda hangs in limbo.

 Build Back Better

Today it remains an outstanding question whether a BBB bill will ever be signed into law. Currently there are “conversations, but not negotiations” taking place between the White House and Sen. Manchin. While some Congressional staffers are convinced that BBB is dead, others believe that there will ultimately be some kind of legislation, or as Rep. Dan Kildee recently put it “Build Back Something.” Based on our conversations, we currently put the odds of a BBB bill being enacted at 50/50.

The conventional wisdom is that if there is going to be a BBB bill, it will be significantly scaled back from President Biden’s initial $3.5 trillion BBB proposal. With Sen. Machin’s $1.8 trillion plan off the table, it remains possible a final BBB vehicle may be even smaller than the House-passed $1.7 trillion bill. Of course, recently released figures on inflation do not bode well for the prospects of a large bill. Understandably, a smaller bill is also likely to be narrower in scope. We are hearing that a final BBB bill might only include climate change and maybe drug pricing provisions.

The timing for BBB action also remains uncertain. For now, the Senate appears distracted by moving nominations, completing the FY22 appropriations process before the February 18 deadline, and potentially moving a supplemental appropriations bill that might provide additional funding for COVID relief and other natural disasters. However, there has been some suggestion that the March 1 State of the Union address or the Congressional Easter recess in April could serve as “self-imposed deadlines” for some final determination on BBB. The odds for passage of a BBB bill likely shrink the closer we get to the midterm elections in November.

USICA

USICA remains a priority for Leader Schumer and activity around a China competitiveness bill appears to be picking up again this week. Since USICA efforts broke down last year, we continue to hear that the White House is pushing the House to pass USICA in its current form, especially as a strong, timely, bipartisan bill could be a significant victory for President Biden to tout during the SOTU.

We’ve also heard that Speaker Pelosi convened relevant committee chairs to discuss cobbling together a House package. While committee staffers tell us they are still awaiting a concrete timeline from leadership, the general goal is for the House to have a China package assembled by the end of January so that it can negotiate with the Senate next month. Of course, with other distractions, the timeline couple slip. Assuming the House package comes together, we have also heard it is possible that staffers might pre-conference competing sections of the House and Senate bills.