Earlier than the Home adjourns for its August recess, Home Speaker Mike Johnson desires to advance extra protection funding, the president’s election integrity invoice and a inventory buying and selling ban for lawmakers.
Transcript
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The Home has only one week left earlier than lawmakers head again to their districts for the August recess.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Home Speaker Mike Johnson has so much he desires to get accomplished in that week – extra money for protection, the president’s election integrity invoice, a stock-trading ban for lawmakers and lengthening funding for the federal authorities previous the final election in November.
MARTIN: NPR Congress reporter Eric McDaniel is right here with us to inform us extra. Good morning, Eric.
ERIC MCDANIEL, BYLINE: Hey. Glad to be right here.
MARTIN: You understand, a number of the issues on that checklist are politically delicate. We’re just some months away from the midterm elections. You’ve got been reporting on this. Are lawmakers prepared to take these robust votes?
MCDANIEL: Yeah, just some months away from the midterms, however let’s additionally discuss in regards to the second we’re in now. President Trump is once more escalating his battle with Iran. Extra American troops have died. Gasoline costs, as of this morning, are once more over $4, in line with AAA. And polling exhibits the price of dwelling and affordability are Individuals’ chief considerations. And that is the context that Republicans have, with perhaps a two-vote margin within the Home, once they’re hoping to take votes on the president’s priorities earlier than they head house to promote their report to constituents in hopes of getting reelected this fall.
Now, gerrymandering and partisan sorting all imply that fewer lawmakers are literally vulnerable to shedding their jobs than you would possibly assume. However when the margin of management in Washington is so slim, there are nonetheless perhaps a dozen or so Republicans who’re in all probability sweating the thought of casting a vote to, say, give billions extra to an increasing battle effort as a part of what’s generally known as a reconciliation invoice with out something new to pay for that spending when political headwinds are already blowing in opposition to them.
MARTIN: Eric, aren’t there extra fashionable issues on the agenda, too? I believe the congressional stock-trading ban and, you realize, voter ID necessities – my recollection is that these are backed by fairly huge majorities in polls.
MCDANIEL: Yeah. That is proper. And I believe there’s an opportunity that that mixed invoice may narrowly move if Speaker Mike Johnson can persuade Republicans to remain united on a procedural step required earlier than the ultimate vote. That is a giant if. And it is doomed within the Senate, the place, not like the reconciliation invoice, it requires a full 60 votes to move.
Some Republicans have objections as a result of this model of the stock-trading ban permits members to maintain the shares they already personal, which in idea means they might nonetheless be swayed to vote in their very own pursuits reasonably than within the pursuits of their constituents. Democrats additionally share that concern, and lots of of them additionally oppose the voter ID necessities.
MARTIN: What in regards to the proposal to fund the federal government by the November election?
MCDANIEL: Republicans are nervous that Democrats won’t cooperate on funding the federal government earlier than the present deadline on the finish of September. Republicans need to go forward and lock in present funding ranges now for a number of months in an effort to keep away from an election-time shutdown. They nonetheless would possibly face objections from individuals in their very own occasion who need to use the leverage of a preelection deadline to extract concessions for their very own pet initiatives, like lowering authorities spending or any variety of different issues.
MARTIN: Has President Trump weighed in on any of this?
MCDANIEL: The president cares about Congress doing one factor and one factor solely. That is passing his SAVE America Act. It is an election integrity invoice. As evidenced by his speech final Thursday, the president’s laser-focused on the concept that there was and stays rampant election fraud in america.
I ought to say Republican and Democratic election officers throughout the nation say that is simply not true. However Home Republicans are attaching the SAVE America Act to a number of unrelated laws in an effort to try to power the Senate to move it. That will not work. The Senate would, once more, require 60 votes to move it. There are solely 53 Republicans, solely 52 voting proper now, with Mitch McConnell’s prolonged absence. Democrats do not help the invoice, which means they don’t seem to be going so as to add to that math. Congress is, as Senate Republican Majority Chief John Thune says, certain by arithmetic.
MARTIN: That’s NPR Congress reporter Eric McDaniel. Eric, thanks.
MCDANIEL: Thanks a lot.
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