Summertime, and the legislatin’ ain’t easy

Presented by PhRMA: An evening recap of the action on Capitol Hill and preview of the day ahead

Jun 06, 2024 View in browser   By Jordain Carney Presented by  With assists from POLITICO’s Congress team Speaker Mike Johnson is preparing to try to pull off a weeks-long legislative sprint. | Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images SAVORING SOME SUMMER SAUSAGEMAKING House Republicans are preparing to dive into a summer slog that will test their tiny margin. Reminder: The House is in for five more weeks (more on that below) before they leave town for the August recess. And they’ve got plenty to do before then — if they can keep their majority together. Their biggest test of that is likely to be leadership’s ambitious schedule to pass 12 government funding bills. They got their first — Military Construction-VA — through this week, but they’ve got more challenging bills that unraveled last year due to GOP infighting coming down the pike. “I think we’ll get all our bills out of committee. And then it really is a leadership and a conference-wide decision. … We can only lose two or three” votes, Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said — effectively summing up the GOP’s perennial tension. House Republicans are taking a break on the floor next week from the government funding train, but are expected to bring the Defense, State-Foreign Operations, and Homeland Security bill to the floor on the week of June 24. (The House is out the prior week.) One Republican acknowledged that “at some point our dream will shatter" and predicted that once the challenging floor plans unravel, the House will likely leave early for the August recess. (Are we trying to manifest an early recess? No comment.) Speaking of defense: Next week, Speaker Mike Johnson is poised to move a massive annual defense policy bill, aka the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), across the House floor. The Rules Committee meeting, expected on Tuesday, could be telling. More than 1,300 amendments have been filed — not a typo — and there are plenty of hot-button issues at stake: banning COVID-related mandates, preventing further funding for a humanitarian aid pier in Gaza, preventing funds under the bill from going to Ukraine and a whole host of culture-war issues. Here’s the tension point: The NDAA came out of the House Armed Services Committee with overwhelming bipartisan support. To set up votes on at least some of those amendments, it will need to come to the floor under a rule. And under typical House practice, the minority party likely will oppose that rule — meaning Johnson will need to rely on rock-solid GOP support to make way for final passage. Members of the House’s right flank are watching closely to see what amendments the Rules Committee allows to come up for a vote. If some of the more controversial GOP measures get added, that would also make the bill’s final passage less bipartisan — and set up a more profound clash with the Senate before it can actually become law. Garland contempt: Johnson told reporters he anticipates holding a vote next week on holding Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress — though as of publication time it’s not yet on the House schedule. If Republicans succeed, it will be their highest-profile political victory to spin out of their months-long investigation into President Joe Biden. (The ultimate goal of impeachment remains way off the table.) But several Republicans are still publicly on the fence — and some told us they are hoping that some sort of deal can be worked out that would provide some kind of an off-ramp. The potential vote comes after Garland reiterated during an hours-long hearing this week that he won’t turn over the audio of Biden’s interview with former special counsel Robert Hur — though DOJ did turn over the transcript. Also: We mentioned this yesterday, so we’ll be brief: A program compensating victims of nuclear radiation exposure is due to expire on June 10, with a Senate bill reauthorizing it currently going nowhere in the House. Both chambers are out of town until June 11. — Jordain Carney GOOD EVENING! Welcome to Inside Congress, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Thursday, June 6, where we are celebrating Sarah’s return from maternity leave.   A message from PhRMA: The 340B drug pricing program is supposed to help vulnerable patients access medicines at qualifying hospitals and clinics. It’s meant to be a safety net for those who really need it. So why is the 340B program padding profits for large hospitals, PBMs and chain pharmacies? Let’s fix 340B so it can help the patients that need it most. Let’s fix 340B.   ANOTHER DE-SPARTZ-TURE Rep. Victoria Spartz is facing a mounting staff exodus as the Indiana Republican faces preliminary inquiries from the House Ethics Committee over her treatment of aides. A third staffer resigned this week as her Chief of Staff Patrick Slowinski and Communications Director Michael Stevens, both of whom began their tenures this year, stepped down in quick succession Tuesday. Teresa Ayers, who had worked for Spartz for six months as outreach director, according to her LinkedIn profile, stepped down on Monday before POLITICO reported on Spartz’s latest staffing troubles, according to two people close to her. Ayers did not return phone or text messages this week. Campaign adviser Dan Hazelwood said her departure followed a reorganization where Spartz “added staff and changed staff roles.” “Some people decided to move on rather than work with the changed responsibilities,” he said. “They are good people who did good work for the people of Indiana.” In a text message, Spartz said the reorganization was due to “the new demands of running for another term.” — Adam Wren   THE GOLD STANDARD OF POLICY REPORTING & INTELLIGENCE: POLITICO has more than 500 journalists delivering unrivaled reporting and illuminating the policy and regulatory landscape for those who need to know what’s next. Throughout the election and the legislative and regulatory pushes that will follow, POLITICO Pro is indispensable to those who need to make informed decisions fast. The Pro platform dives deeper into critical and quickly evolving sectors and industries—finance, defense, technology, healthcare, energy—equipping policymakers and those who shape legislation and regulation with essential news and intelligence from the world’s best politics and policy journalists. Our newsroom is deeper, more experienced, and better sourced than any other—with teams embedded in the world’s most active legislative and regulatory power centers. From Brussels to Washington, New York to London, Sacramento to Paris, we bring subscribers inside the conversations that determine policy outcomes and the future of industries, providing insight that cannot be found anywhere else. Get the premier news and policy intelligence service, SUBSCRIBE TO POLITICO PRO TODAY.     IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY SPINOFF House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) told us that he is planning to roll out another piece of legislation linked to the GOP’s impeachment inquiry — this one dealing with presidential records and the handling of classified documents. There’s been bipartisan (and bicameral) interest in making changes after former president Donald Trump, former vice president Mike Pence and Biden were all found to have classified documents in their possession after leaving office. (We’ll add the perennial caveat that there are major differences in each of the cases, but the steady drip sparked legislative interest on Capitol Hill.) Several members of the House Intelligence Committee have already offered legislation on the classification issue, and the panel interviewed National Archives staff last year on the handling of presidential records. Comer told us that while he hasn’t talked to Intelligence Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio), he has spoken to other Republicans in the military and intelligence space. “There’s a lot of stuff that’s classified that I don’t think should be,” he said. “That’s what’s making it a little more complicated: How do you determine what meets the definition?” — Jordain Carney   A message from PhRMA:   HUDDLE HOTDISH 50 Cent got some heat for taking a photo with Lauren Boebert Wednesday … and then had some thoughts.  Chris Murphy isn’t letting Dan Hurley leave UConn without a fight.   JOIN US ON 6/12 FOR A TALK ON THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY: As air travel soars again, policymakers and airlines are grappling with a series of contemporary challenges to the industry's future. Join POLITICO on June 12 for a topical and timely conversation with government leaders and aviation stakeholders about the state of the airline industry. From what passengers want to what airlines need amid the high demand for air traffic, workers and technology solutions. What can Washington do to ensure passengers and providers are equipped to fly right? REGISTER HERE.     QUICK LINKS  ​​‘It’s Really Shameful’: House Republicans Accuse Rep. Troy Nehls of Stolen Valor Over Military Award Pin, from John Seward at NOTUS Congressional stock trading law has unintended, but profitable consequence, from Deirdre Walsh at NPR TOMORROW IN CONGRESS The Senate will hold a pro forma session at 10 a.m. The House will meet for a pro forma session at 2 p.m. FRIDAY AROUND THE HILL Crickets. TRIVIA WEDNESDAY’S ANSWER: Anthony Coley (a former Treasury Department spokesperson — no fair!) was the first to correctly guess that John F. Kennedy is on the half-dollar coin issued by the U.S. Mint and that Congress eliminated silver from the coin with the Coinage Act of 1965. TODAY’S QUESTION, from Anthony: Who was the first African American woman to represent the state of North Carolina in Congress? The first person to correctly guess gets a mention in the next edition of Inside Congress. Send your answers to insidecongress@politico.com. GET INSIDE CONGRESS emailed to your phone each evening.   A message from PhRMA: Hospitals that participate in the 340B program contract with more than 33,000 pharmacies to dispense the program’s drug prescriptions. More than 40% of these pharmacies have financial ties to one of the three largest PBMs – CVS Health, Express Scripts and OptumRx. 340B hospitals and the PBM-owned pharmacies they contract with are profiting off discounted medicines while uninsured patients are left paying full price for their medicines. Let’s fix 340B so it better helps patients.     Follow us

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