The Look Ahead – February 2024

Balance of Power

Senate: 48 Democrats, 49 Republicans, 3 Independents Caucusing with Democrats

House: 219 Republicans, 212 Democrats, 4 Vacancies*

• Rep. George Santos (R-NY) was expelled; his seat will be filled by a special election on February 13th. Democrat aligned outside groups have spent $8 million to the Republican $3 million in a race between former Rep. Tom Souzzi (D) and Ethiopian born veteran of the Israeli military Mazi Melesa Pilip (R). Leans Dem.

• Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) resigned January 1st, Governor Newsom (D) set a March 19th primary date. If no candidate receives 50%+ of the vote a runoff between the top two vote getters would occur on May 21st. This is a safe Republican seat.

• Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH) resigned January 21st. A special primary will take place on March 19th, and a general election on June 11th. This is a safe Republican seat.

• *Rep. Brian Higgins (D-NY) resigns today Friday, February 2nd. Governor Hochul (D) has 10 days to schedule a special election, likely in April. State Sen. Timothy Kennedy won the Democrat’s nomination for Higgins seat and will more than likely be elected to serve out the remainder of the term. This is a safe Democrat seat.

Top Line Take Aways:

• We Have Top Line Spending Agreement…BUT: House and Senate Appropriators (finally) struck a deal on top line spending numbers for FY2024…what’s the rush? This is great news, right? Maybe. Top line agreement means policy riders demanded by conservatives are out, as are further spending cuts. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) needs to get these bills to the floor and since we know there are at least three Republicans who will vote against a rule, the Speaker either needs House Democrats to break ranks and vote for a rule, OR he needs big enough margins to pass these bills on suspension. Which one do we think is more likely? Remember for conservatives the best spending outcome here is a CR, which would lock in cuts under the Fiscal Responsibility Act. A safe bet is that Defense and Mil-Con/VA could pass the House to avoid the sequester and conservatives will try to blow up the rest to lock in spending cuts via another CR. Majority Leader Schumer (D-NY) would of course refuse to put those on the floor to honor the deal. Which means this all likely ends with a giant omnibus, or potentially a few “mini-bus” spending bills, the exact thing Speaker Johnson promised he’d never do.

• Do or Die Time for Immigration: Senate negotiators are trying really hard to keep this train on the tracks, but as we covered in last month’s Look Ahead, the politics of immigration in the House are dramatically different than in the Senate. There’s simply no scenario where House Republicans will accept enforcement mechanisms that don’t kick in until 5,000 people have crossed illegally in a day. This doesn’t have anything to do with former President Trump, though he will certainly try to make it about himself and take credit for killing the deal. The fact remains the average House Republican, even moderates, are much more conservative on immigration than their Senate counterparts. If something passes the Senate, look for House Republicans to attach H.R. 2 and send it back, or simply ignore it all together. If nothing passes in the month of February, it’ll be extremely unlikely to gain momentum after Trump locks down the GOP nomination on Super Tuesday, March 5th. Text is expected any day now, with Leader Schumer potentially teeing up a procedural vote as early as next week. Prediction: the GOP base will react extremely negatively to the bill, and Republican Senators without a dog in the fight will conclude the juice isn’t worth the squeeze and the effort peters out. Immigration is hard!

• Mayorkas Impeachment: House Homeland Security advanced articles of impeachment against the Secretary of Homeland Security on Tuesday, January 30th. It’s tough to see this train staying at the station. The politics of this issue have changed to the point where liberal mayors of major metropolitan areas are openly criticizing the White House over the situation at the border. There’s little downside for moderate GOP Members in Biden districts to oppose this move. Expect this to go to the floor and pass, though timing will be in the air because of the tight majority, absences will be in play here.

• Senate Impeachment Trial Will Cause Delays: Remember, impeachment has the highest privilege in the Senate, meaning if/when the House votes to impeach Secretary Mayorkas, the Senate will have to take it up immediately. No, there are not enough votes to remove Mayorkas, and there are more than a few Senate Republicans who are sour on this effort. But there are also enough Senate Republicans who will want to drag this out for their own reasons. The Senate has to meet at 1pm the day following the articles being presented by the House. From there the Senate would likely adopt a resolution outlining the process but at a minimum it involves opening arguments, then questions, and then each senator can speak for up to 15 minutes. Great way to kill floor time during a critical period!  However, an impeachment organizing resolution only needs a simple majority to pass, not 60, so there’s that!

• Death and Taxes?: What a saga this has turned into. We can’t remember this amount of drama around a bipartisan, bicameral agreement that passed out of an “A” committee, with a vote of 40-3. Ultimately it passed on suspension 357-70, with an odd coalition of NO votes. However, it looks like Senate Finance Ranking Member Mike Crapo (R-ID) wants to pump the brakes and amend the bill in committee, though Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) opposes this. That could drag passage of the bill out likely to the end of the year.

  • A handful of House GOP NYers pressing for SALT relief in the tax package got a commitment from House Leadership for a February vote on a SALT bill to double deductions for married couples who earn less than $500,000 per year and file taxes jointly, getting rid of the “marriage penalty” for those eligible couples. We will see. It’s doubtful leadership brings up a bill if it looks like it’ll fail. Rule #1 of maximizing leverage is never accept a promise from Leadership for a future vote on a bill that doesn’t exist…not that any of us at Elevate are bitter about something like that or anything. Definitely not that.

• Earmark Time is Here: If you, or your clients, are in the earmark business…sorry, ‘congressionally directed spending’…then look alive! Some offices have deadlines as early as February 23rd to get your requests in! Many of these are in the Senate, last year’s House deadlines were due mid-March and we haven’t seen any updates from House Appropriations. Individual Members and Senators all handle this differently, but you should start getting your ducks in a row if you haven’t already!

• Socials at the Supreme Court: Fresh off a high-profile Senate hearing, content moderation will be in front of the High Court on February 26th, when oral arguments for NetChoice v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice are heard. The two cases relate to Florida and Texas laws prohibiting certain types of content moderation. We’ve have it on good authority that policymakers are watching these cases to see what, if anything, Congress needs to do in this space. Leadership!