”Engaged and energized”: Why some candidates want to serve in a dysfunctional Congress
Plus: the latest on the Senate border talks, House Democrats sound off against Republican extremism on abortion and House GOP formalizes the Biden impeachment probe.
👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Welcome back to Once Upon a Hill, a new in-depth and independent newsletter about Congress, campaigns, politics and more.
Happy belated birthday to my mom, whom I lovingly call Wonder Woman and whose special day was Wednesday—between the last edition and this one.
Reminder: Once Upon a Hill will be on break while Congress is in recess. As you’ll read below, the Senate has delayed the start of its vacation, so you may hear from me if major news breaks. Otherwise, I plan to unplug and prep for a bonkers campaign season and its impact on the body politic. I’ll officially return to your inbox on Jan. 8, 2024—11 days before another government funding deadline, so you know that’ll be fun. Until then, be good to yourself. Happy Holidays!
First Things First
With the retirement announcements of Reps. Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.) and Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.) on Thursday, 40 members of Congress—seven senators and 33 House members—have decided not to seek reelection next year.
With all these members leaving, I wondered: Why would anyone want to come to Congress?
I asked Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), who, in her role as chair of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, is responsible for recruiting candidates and getting them elected.
“Our rights, our freedoms and our democracy are at stake,” she said to me on Tuesday. “People want to run to stand up for [them].”
She added that the extremism in the Republican party is pulling people off the sidelines and into the arena.
“The only focus they have right now is on an impeachment inquiry—nothing to do with the needs of the American people,” DelBene continued. “So there are candidates across the country who are engaged and energized because they want to make a difference.”
House Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) told me that issues like abortion rights are also motivating factors for candidates, especially in the wake of the recent abortion case involving Kate Cox, a woman who sued Texas for the right to have terminate a non-viable pregnancy (more on this story below).
“And what we’re seeing now is Republicans carrying out what Donald Trump did,” Lieu said. “He campaigned on overturning Roe v. Wade, he then appointed ultraconservative justices to overturn Roe v. Wade. He then bragged about it and said women should be punished for having an abortion. That’s what’s at stake.”
At this point in the 2022 cycle, 30 House members and six senators had announced their retirements, according to Ballotpedia. 32 House members had announced in the 2020 and 2018 cycles. Four senators had done so in 2020 with two in the 2018 cycle.
If Susheela Jayapal is elected to replace Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), who decided against seeking reelection, she and her sister Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) would become the first sisters to serve in Congress at the same time from different states.
Pramila, due in part to her high-profile role as chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has been the target of serious death threats. She told me last month that they discussed the good, bad and sometimes ugly aspects of holding national public office.
“In some ways, she’s had a front-row seat to see that. And so we talked a lot about that,” she said. “She’s been there and she’s watched the attacks on me and she really, like me, wants to be in the fight to preserve democracy.”
But with some Republican institutionalists stepping aside like former Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), there’s a chance they could be replaced with more Trumpian successors. This possibility hasn’t escaped Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.).
“I’m extremely concerned about it,” he said. “And the mistake now is when I hear people describe the MAGA right as a minority in their caucus—they’re running the Republican caucus now.”
For proof, Raskin suggested to look no further than the meteoric rise of Mike Johnson (R-La.).
“He’s Speaker of the House totally at the sufferance of Donald Trump who turned against Kevin McCarthy and would not accept [House Majority Whip] Tom Emmer [(R-Minn.)]. But he gave the big thumbs-up to [House Judiciary Committee Chairman] Jim Jordan [(R-Ohio)] and Mike Johnson. That’s the ruling faction within the Republican Conference.”
Related: “Why so many members of Congress are calling it quits” by Li Zhou
Schumer slashes holiday recess to keep hope alive for border deal
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced a disappointing change of plans late Thursday afternoon for senators: Instead of heading home for a three-week holiday recess, they must return next week to wrap up some unfinished business.
At the top of the list? An emergency national security funding package with billions of dollars in aid to countries like Ukraine and Israel, plus tough provisions to address the influx of migrants at the southern border.
Negotiators on the border deal—including from both parties, Senate leadership aides and top White House officials—are expected to continue talks into the weekend.
“It is not easy to reach an agreement in something this complicated,” Schumer said. “This might be one of the most difficult things we have ever had to work through. But we all know that so much hangs on our success.”
While they’ve acknowledged progress after days of pointing fingers at each other for why progress has stalled, the negotiators concede there’s still a long way to go.
Schumer is pushing ahead anyway and said the Senate will hold a vote on a shell bill for the final legislation next week. Senate Republicans, for their part, say they will block it from advancing without seeing the legislative text of the border deal first. (They’ve already done so once.)
Senate Republicans also see Schumer’s urgency as political theater. Even if the Senate miraculously reached a deal and had legislative text to match in the next few days, the House went home for holiday recess yesterday. Speaker Johnson has repeatedly said he is not returning members to vote on a last-minute end-of-year bill.
There’s a sense that it would be harder for Johnson to maintain this stance if the only thing standing between the president signing a bill with beefed-up border policies, which House conservatives demanded in the first place, was House GOP leadership’s unwillingness to bring it to the floor. Still, it’s unlikely the House will be back before 2024.
Senate Republicans are also frustrated that the White House didn’t come to the negotiating table sooner. If the Biden administration hadn’t been so deferential to Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) for several weeks, they would have gotten where they currently are sooner.
Senate Democrats and the White House argue that if addressing the border crisis and providing aid to international countries in their time of need is urgent, senators should be willing to get the job done. Christmas is still over a week away, and senators could pass a deal and make it home to celebrate with loved ones. But again: This argument is weak without a border framework or text to scrutinize.
Suppose the final deal includes a new authority to expel migrants without asylum hearings or dramatically expand the detention and deportation of undocumented migrants, as CBS first reported this week. In that case, it’s expected to Latino members and House progressives are expected to oppose it en masse.
They say it would be a massive policy failure and political blunder for the White House to trade permanent changes to an already-broken immigration system to fund a one-off emergency request.
These members say President Biden won’t receive any credit from the right for moving to the center on immigration, and it will come at the cost of alienating his base. Several said in public remarks and private conversations that the specter of a second Donald Trump term won’t be enough to make Latino voters forget about a betrayal on an issue the president has claimed to feel deep compassion for.
“Ukraine is a top priority [for the White House] and I think that’s the concern,“ Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.), who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said to me on Wednesday. “They’re allowing Republicans to play political football with us, and this is not the venue. This is not the bill to be having that conversation.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) declined to comment on Thursday when asked if he had spoken with members of the CHC about their opposition to the proposed policies.
“I’m not in a position to comment on any potential agreement in the absence of being able to actually review the substance of what a proposal looks like in the Senate.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine was on the Hill on Tuesday to make the case for why the US should continue to provide aid to his country. But I’m told that while he’s aware of the current border negotiations, he didn’t take a position on them.
The White House—and most members of Congress—argue that without additional funding for the war, Russia will move through Ukraine, claiming territory through force, and then set its sights on NATO countries like Poland, which would require a US military response.
“We know the world is watching,” Schumer said. “We know autocrats like [President Vladimir] Putin [of Russia] and [President] Xi [Jinping of China] are hoping for us to fail. So we need to try with everything we have to get the job done.”
Beyond the supplemental package, the Senate also has some end-of-year loose ends to tie, including approving the remaining 11 four-star generals still being blocked by Rep. Tommy Tuberville’s hold on military promotions in protest to a Pentagon abortion policy. Senators will also have to extend the current Federal Aviation Administration’s authorization before the end of the year. And Martin O’Malley will need to be confirmed as the next head of the Social Security Administration.
The Kate Cox case proves Republicans can’t separate rhetoric from reality on abortion
Back to the Kate Cox story, which has captured the nation—and served as an example of the IRL nightmare abortion rights advocates warned would become the norm after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
ICYMI: Cox filed the first public lawsuit since Roe against Texas for the right to an emergency abortion after her fetus was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a genetic disorder that could cause death in the womb or lead to death days after birth.
The lawsuit said Cox was at risk of several life-threatening conditions, which led to a Texas judge ruling Cox qualified for a medical exemption from Texas’s six-week abortion ban.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton threatened to prosecute doctors if they performed an abortion on Cox and appealed the lower court ruling to the state’s supreme court. The Texas high court paused the judge’s ruling and ultimately unanimously ruled against Cox, who left Texas to obtain an abortion.
This heartbreaking case flies in the face of Republicans who say they support exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother yet had little to say about when they rejected the science to enforce a draconian and unpopular law.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who hosts a podcast several times a week and rarely meets a mic he won’t speak into, told reporters to contact his press office each time he was asked about the case. When told his office had been contacted, his answer remained the same.
“After fighting for years to enact our state’s extreme abortion ban, Ted Cruz refuses to take any accountability for the tragic situations he has put Texas women in,” Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), who is running for Cruz’s Senate seat in 2024. “Texas women can’t afford six more years of Ted Cruz.”
Republican John Cornyn, Texas’s other senator, also dodged reporters’ questions this week.
“Well, I’m a federal official,” he said. “I’m not going to comment on what state officials are doing. I’m happy to comment on anything I’m responsible for.”
For Texas House Democrats, the silence is infuriating but unsurprising.
“This is the kind of future that Republicans want for woman,” Rep. Veronica Escobar (R-Texas), who serves in House Democratic leadership and on the Biden campaign’s advisory board. “And women in every single state need to realize whether they are in a blue state with abortion protections or in a red state like mine, this is the Republican vision for women: To control us, to make us beg for our health care, make us beg for our futures—and even then it won't be enough.”
Greg Casar, a Texas first-term congressman from Austin, told me the Republican position on abortion has crossed a line against humanity in a way that’s disturbed people regardless of their political ideology.
“I think people are starting to recognize that being pregnant in Texas is no longer safe,” he said. “And if being pregnant in Texas isn’t safe, then that means people you know and love are you being put in harm's way.”
Jasmine Crockett served in the Texas state legislature when the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned Roe and knows first-hand how extreme the state’s Republican Party has become in recent years.
“It’s disingenuous to say that they’re pro-life, it’s disingenuous for them to say that they give a damn about families, they give a damn about babies,” Crockett, who now represents a North Dallas congressional district, told me. They don’t give a damn about nothing but controlling women's bodies, period.”
And it’s not just Cox or women in Texas suffering.
A woman in Kentucky woman is leading a class-action lawsuit against the state for preventing her from receiving abortion care. The Jane Doe later learned her embryo no longer had cardiac activity and decided to have an e
“They’re trying to dance around it. They’re trying to make Americans forget about it. I’m sure it kills them this is in the news,” Escobar told me. “And by the way, it’s going to continue to be in the news because we’re going to see more challenges [to these state abortion bans].”
Hunter Biden sounds off as House GOP votes to formalize impeachment vote against his dad
As I approached the Senate Swamp—located on the grass across the drive of the east steps of the chamber—on Wednesday morning, the scene was unusually buzzy for what was supposed to be a press conference with Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) ahead of the House Republicans’ vote to formalize an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
What unfolded instead was wild: Hunter Biden emerged from a black SUV, followed his attorney Abbe Lowell through the thicket of reporters and called the bluffs of the men investigating his family for crimes to stick to the president.
“For six years, I’ve been the target of the unrelenting Trump attack machine shouting, ‘Where’s Hunter?’” the younger Biden said. “Well, here’s my answer: I am here.”
Hunter was due at the Rayburn House Office Building to sit for a closed-door deposition. But his distrust that the committee would report his testimony in good faith led him to agree to testify in public or defy the subpoena altogether.
To be clear, his defiance could result in him facing contempt charges. But the savvy decision to make a statement with the Capitol Dome as a backdrop, a moment later confirmed Swalwell helped orchestrate, snatched the news cycle from House Republicans and enabled the 51-year-old recovering drug addict and businessman to speak for himself for once.
“There is no fairness or decency in what these Republicans are doing. They have lied over and over about every aspect of my personal and professional life so much so that their lives have become the false facts of belief by too many people,” Hunter, who is facing several federal gun- and tax-related charges, said. “They have taken the light of my dad's love for me, are presented it as darkness. They have no shame.”
These same Republicans would vote to authorize the impeachment inquiry into President Biden along party lines later that day.
All Republicans—including Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who indicated his opposition to the inquiry and told me on the elevator up to the House floor moments before the vote he would vote no—supported the resolution. All Democrats voted against it.
Republicans have yet to uncover any wrongdoing by the president, but they say a formal inquiry broadens their investigative powers as they search for a smoking gun.
“I wake up every day focused on the issues facing the American people—real issues that impact their lives, and the strength and security of our country and the world,” Biden said in a statement after the vote. “Unfortunately, House Republicans are not joining me. Instead of doing anything to help make Americans’ lives better, they are focused on attacking me with lies.”
He added: “The American people deserve better.”
Related: “No evidence, no problem: House GOP rolls full steam ahead toward Biden impeachment”
In the Know
House Democrats marked the 11th year anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting on Thursday with sharp criticisms of Speaker Johnson for adjourning for the holiday recess without bringing any significant gun safety legislation to the floor. “Today, the MAGA extremists and do-nothing Republican Congress is leaving town without meaningfully addressing the gun violence epidemic,” House Democratic Leader Jeffries. “We will continue to speak up. We will continue to show up. We will continue to stand up.”
The House passed the National Defense Authorization Act, the annual bill that sets policy and permits funding for the Defense Department, in a bipartisan 310-218 vote. The Senate approved the measure—which authorizes $874.2 billion for national defense programs, increases pay for military service members by 5.2 percent and excludes several far-right provisions House conservatives secured in their version—by an 87-13 margin. The bill now heads to President Biden’s desk to be signed into law.
The Senate passed a bill to grant back pay for military service members who didn’t receive their raises while Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) blocked their promotions in protest of a Pentagon abortion policy. “America is keeping its promise and saying to these men and women: You served us well; you don’t deserve to be penalized in any way at all,” Sen. Schumer said during floor remarks after the vote.
The House passed a bill that would allow schools to serve whole milk and two-percent milk, which have been prohibited since 2012 over concerns they increase childhood obesity. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) attempted to approve the bill in the Senate by unanimous consent but Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, objected, effectively stalling the passage of the bill.
Sheila Jackson Lee filed to run for reelection to her Houston congressional district after handily losing a bid to serve at the Texas city’s mayor. Isaiah Martin, the 25-year-old Gen Z candidate who announced his campaign for the seat when Jackson Lee launched her mayoral bid, suspended the campaign and endorsed the congresswoman. Native Houstonian and former Houston city council member Amanda Edwards said she would remain in the race for the deep-blue district that has voted for a Democrat in every presidential election since 1972.
The New Democrat Action Fund endorsed Mondaire Jones in his comeback campaign to represent an upstate New York congressional district. Jones was not a member of the center-left New Democrat coalition when he served as a first-term member last Congress. But spokespeople for Jones’s campaign and the NDC told me he would also rejoin the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
The top three House Democrats—Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) and Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.)—endorsed Delaware Democratic Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester’s campaign to succeed Tom Carper (D-Del.) in the Senate. “It feels phenomenal,” Blunt Rochester, who would be the first woman and person of color to represent Delaware in the Senate, told me on Tuesday night. “They are incredible examples of leadership in this country right now who I hope to work with, as they ascend to leadership even higher in the House in 2024.”
The New York Court of Appeals ordered the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission to draw a new state congressional map after the commission was blocked from performing the duty ahead of the 2022 midterms. New York Democrats are bullish the new map will help them recoup several seats it lost to Republicans who ran as tough-on-crime moderates.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to a federal Texas court ruling that would remove the abortion pill mifepristone from the market. It’s the first major abortion case the high court will consider since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
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Thanks for reading Once Upon a Hill! That’s all for now! Send me your tips, ideas and feedback: michael@onceuponahill.com. See you in 2024! 🥳