Director of Government Relations :: Larry Hart

In the past, the Democrat congressional leadership, particularly in the House, has had no compunction about holding hostage spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to attach pet domestic spending projects.  They have been doing it with a legislative trick:  separate the war funding (unpopular with liberals) and the domestic pork (unpopular with conservatives) into two separate pieces of legislation.  Then, when each receives a different coalition of majority votes and passes, the bills are merged in the Senate.  This time the willingness of Democrats to play this game is lessening with increasing resistance to deficit spending, and the domestic spending component keeps getting cut although no one is quite sure by how much until the final bill is revealed in the next day or two (some say what was once $50 billion in pork spending will be cut to $10 billion).  Remarkably, Republicans have never made a big issue out of this game playing as you would think it might outrage those who take funding for the troops seriously.

Correction: In Monday’s blog, I mentioned the inability to hold up the Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan as long as at least two Republican Senators, Orrin Hatch of Utah and John Thune of South Dakota, are committed to opposing any filibuster of any Supreme Court nominee.  Aides to Senator Thune have clarified his position to note that he does not take the Hatch position that it would be unconstitutional to deny an up or down vote on any nominee, but that a vote should only be denied in “extreme” circumstances.  Senator Thune’s position came about as a result of his contest with then Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle who had delayed and denied votes on President Bush’s early judicial nominees.  I am glad to correct the record.

Director of Government Relations :: Larry Hart

The final wheeling and dealing on the financial services overhaul bill which ended at 5:30am on Friday morning produced yet another 2,300 page behemoth conference report but the House is not expected to spend much time trying to read it before passing it by Wednesday.  The Senate schedule, however, is up for grabs after the death of legendary Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia at the age of 92.  The bill passed the Senate by a 20 vote margin originally after Republicans refused to use the filibuster to hold it up.  The Democrats badly want this bill passed before July 4th and its unclear what the Republican position will be this time.  The bill gives permanent bailout authority to federal regulators as well as handing them life or death power over a large range of financial businesses.  Added to the bill is a $19 billion bank tax which will ultimately be passed along to the consumer.

No surprises at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan.  The confirmation is a foregone conclusion since at least two Republican Senators, Orrin Hatch of Utah and John Thune of South Dakota, have committed to opposing a filibuster on any nominee to the Supreme Court, but Kagan will be pressed hard on her long record of political activism when the questions get underway Tuesday.  Follow the hearings blow by blow this week on our website and through Facebook and Twitter.

Although Democrats in the House were set to add many billions of domestic spending to the war supplemental bill for Iraq and Afghanistan, the growing opposition to free wheeling spending has reduced the cost but the amount is still unclear.

The House leadership is now refusing to present even a one year budget resolution and instead will pass what is known as a “deeming” resolution.  This means that whatever Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer allocate to each Appropriations Subcommittee, it will be “deemed” passed just as if the House debated and passed a regular budget resolution.  This avoids the annoyance of actually having a full debate and voting on amendments.  Nevertheless, the House Republican Study Committee has produced a complete budget document which should be a model for conservatives everywhere that balances the budget and produces a surplus in less than ten years.  Check it out at www.conservative.org

Director of Government Relations :: Larry Hart

Although much has been written about the dramatic change in the political climate which has produced forecasts of big conservative gains in the November elections, the reality is that the Obama/Pelosi/Reid juggernaut has relentlessly pursued their left wing agenda of putting major sectors of the U.S. economy under the thumb of the federal government with great success. Having taken over the housing industry, the Detroit-based auto companies and health care, the banking industry is next on the agenda. That was brought home at 5am this morning when an all-night session of House and Senate negotiators produced a deal on the financial overhaul bill.  There were no major principles at stake in the weeks-long negotiations, only where new bureaucracies would be placed and how much lobbyists from Goldman Sachs and the other big banks could protect their clients’ special interests.

Although the votes will be close, there is little doubt of passage in both the House and senate next week as a Conference Report such as this gets expedited procedures.  Here’s the way things will work under the bill:

• A troika of the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Treasury Department  will be handed permanent bailout authority along with the authority without further congressional approval to pick which businesses will survive or fail.
• A new bureaucracy will be formed to decide what financial products, such as installment plans or credit cards can be offered and what the rules will be.
• There be a $19 billion bank tax which, of course, will be passed along to the consumer in rates and fees.

Oh , and then there is what is missing from the bill—any reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which, since their takeover by the federal government, has bled taxpayer dollars by the billions every month.

You can always expect the last week before a congressional recess to be jam packed with activity and next week will be no exception.  At the same time the full Senate will take up the financial overhaul, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.  ACU will be on hand to let you know whether one of the most blatantly political choices for the court in decades is getting the tough questions or being let off easy.

Director of Government Relations :: Larry Hart

As was the case with Senate Democrats on Obamacare, House Democrats have gone through a crude process of backroom dealing for the last month to finally pass a bill to make sure incorporated groups do not get the free speech rights given them by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision earlier this year.  Amendment after amendment has been added to the bill torturing the language so that favored groups would be exempt from the most onerous provisions and to make sure that unions will be treated differently from business groups.

The latest changes added a threshold level of donations for independent expenditures of $600.   That figure just happens to be one the unions say is high enough to exclude most union dues.  Another piece of added language in the bill creates a loophole for unions to transfer money from one union to another without reporting it.

All this along with the special exemption for the National Rifle Association, the Sierra Club and some other large groups make it less and less likely the bill will pass constitutional muster.  However, the author of the bill, Maryland’s Chris Van Hollen, who just happens to be the Chairman of the Democrats’ campaign committee,  has cleverly left out a key section of every other campaign finance bill to pass in recent years—one that calls for expedited hearings by the courts.  The result, the Democrats hope, will be that they can shut down the opposition for the 2010 election before any court strikes down the law.

Of course, the Republicans are now able to stop this blatantly partisan bill in the Senate if they stick together.  Whether they will remains to be seen.

Director of Government Relations :: Larry Hart

The Republicans in the House have small numbers and the rules of the House are such that the majority can usually have its way.  However, at times the Republicans have been able to embarrass the Democrats into changing a bill or forcing the majority to cancel a vote altogether.  Such was the case a few weeks ago when a clever amendment strategy forced a spending bill to be cut in half.  Such was also the case today when the Democrats tried to sneak a bill introduced way back in February by New York Democrat Edolphus Towns was put on the suspension calendar.  This is usually reserved for “non-controversial” bills such as naming post offices and congratulating the Los Angeles Lakers basketball champs.  While bills “on suspension” only receive 40 minutes of debate and cannot be amended, they require a 2/3 vote to pass.  In this case, Towns, apparently believing that the plight of social workers needs government attention, wrote a bill setting up a federal commission (yes, another one) to study compensation and license policies of social workers and award taxpayer-funded grants of $100,000 each to improve the lot of said social workers.  The bill does not specify how much all this will cost, but uses a legislative sleight-of-hand by saying the appropriations will be “such sums as needed.”  The conservative Republican Study Committee sounded the alarm about this bill and when it began to look like enough republicans would vote “no” to deny the two-thirds needed. The bill suddenly disappeared from the calendar.  It is possible to bring the bill back in the usual way when it requires only a majority to pass, but that is time-consuming and it’s unclear that will happen on a bill such as this pet project of Mr. Towns.

www.conservative.org

Director of Government Relations :: Larry Hart

Under a daily pounding from House Republicans, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has announced that House Democrats have agreed to bring a budget resolution to the floor—but only for an unprecedented one year instead of the usual five.  This accomplishes two things:  it prevents the opposition from saying that, under this leadership, the House will not pass any budget resolution for the first time since the Budget Act was passed in  1974.  At the same time, it prevents Democrats from having to vote on a five year projection of trillion dollar deficits or—horror of horrors—outline actual cuts in spending.

The excuse Hoyer is using is the federal deficit commission appointed by Obama will be making long term recommendations so we should wait for that to happen—of course, that will happen conveniently after the elections.  Even the one year budget resolution, however, will give conservatives a chance for some roll call votes on various issues, including the proposed conservative budget that ACU included in its ratings for 2009.

Hoyer also all but admitted there will be no regular appropriations process this year, despite the large Democrat majorities.  He suggested that all but one or two of the 12 appropriations bills will be punted to what everyone expects to be a post election lame duck session of Congress.

www.conservative.org

Director of Government Relations :: Larry Hart

The liberals in Congress are mad.  They are mad that the congressional leadership cut a deal with the National Rifle Association to exempt that organization from the draconian new campaign finance laws they have cooked up and are attempting to pass.  They are still mad after they expanded what is known in legislative-speak as a “carve-out” to include the left-wing Sierra Club.  The result is another stalemate in what was expected to be an easy ride for the so-called DISCLOSE Act through the House with their strict rules and large Democrat majority.  You can expect more on-again, off-again attempts to pass the bill, H.R. 5175, this week. Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat in charge of his party’s campaign committee, is now caught between party regulars who are determined to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave incorporated groups political free speech rights and more idealistic liberals who are getting sick of the cynical backroom deals that characterized the passage of Obamacare.

The liberals are also mad that the Blue Dog Democrats, self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives, are not rolling over and playing dead on spending bills as they have for so long.  It seems that after the Blue Dogs’ pet bill, the “Pay-As-You-Go” Act, was signed by President Obama in February, liberals felt they had a deal to use the “emergency spending” escape clause to just keep on spending without any offset spending cuts or tax increases—and that’s exactly what happened until now.  As the primaries have proven scary for incumbents and the polls for November remain bad for Democrats, the Blue Dogs have started barking again and holding up spending bills until they have been reduced or stalled.  In the Senate, it’s a combination of moderates like Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska, still suffering from his health care shenanigans, and moderate to liberal Republicans like Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and George Voinovich, that are insisting these bills don’t increase the deficit. (They don’t mind spending and tax increases, just don’t increase the deficit).  This has held up the so-called “extenders” bill for weeks, upsetting both business and labor groups that stand to benefit from various tax breaks and subsidies.  Another sign of leadership weakness is Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s announcement last week that, despite all the delays, the House will go out a week ­early for the summer recess on July 30 instead of August 7. Each week that goes by is making the incumbents more nervous.

www.conservative.org

Dear Senator:

The American Conservative Union is strongly opposed to the continued use of tax increases as offsets to spending bills while no effort is being made to reduce the massive spending increases in federal programs over the past few years.

The most recent examples are offsets used by the Reid amendment to H.R 4213 extending the homebuyer’s tax credit.  While ostensibly aimed at business, many of these taxes will be costly to consumers in the end.  The massive increase in the oil spill liability trust fund tax from 8 to 49 cents per barrel is a job killer that not only affects private sector employment recovery but in the long run raises the cost of energy to every American.

Particularly egregious is killing the tax deduction for punitive damages.  This is yet another effort to increase trial lawyers’ income by simultaneously increasing the number of lawsuits that go to court while giving a hammer to trial lawyers to extort settlements from companies in frivolous lawsuits.  Again, by increasing the cost of doing business, government is making it harder to expand private sector job creation and passing along long term costs to the consumer.

A study by the Washington Legal Foundation shows that by equating punitive damages with criminal liability, which are not deductible, the proposal ignores major differences.  For example, criminal fines are prescribed in law, while punitive damages are often at the whim of a jury. Criminal liability must also be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, which is not true for punitive damages liability in most states.

As a result of these tax increases being added to the bill, we urge you to vote “NO” on H.R. 4213.

Sincerely,

Larry Hart
Director of Government Relations
The American Conservative Union

Director of Government Relations :: Larry Hart

The knots we talked about yesterday are still twisted.  More backroom deals have been made on bills the Democratic leadership are desperate to get through, one in the House and one in the Senate, but they have still not met with success. After liberals erupted in fury over the deal with the NRA to pass, H.R. 5175, the bill suppressing free speech for incorporated groups, they expanded the so-called “carve-out” to include more groups, but only the very largest ones. So the Democrat leadership, for the second time in three weeks, set a Rules Committee meeting for 3pm, sending the message that they would push for a vote Friday.  But for the second time in three weeks, the meeting was canceled.  Unless they hold a committee meeting by Midnight, it will be Tuesday before it could be taken up again.  This was expected to be an easy win for the liberals in the House, but it’s getting tougher with every week.

In the Senate, the liberal leadership has been embarrassed by defections on the so-called “extenders” bill, which they refuse to offset with other spending cuts so as not to increase the deficit.  Instead, they have produced smaller and smaller bills that include some tax increases, the latest $118 billion, down from $140 billion. Some tax increases that hit small business were also modified.  Now, more than half the bill is “paid for,” but it would still increase the deficit by well over $50 billion and as of this writing the search was still on for the 60 votes needed.

Dear Representative:

Director of Government Relations :: Larry Hart

Tied up in knots.  That characterizes the Democrats in both houses of Congress today.  In the House, although it is on track to pass what amounts to a small bank bailout bill to help small business lending, the much heralded “deal” with the NRA to pass the so-called DISCLOSE bill to suppress free speech rights of incorporated groups is falling apart.  Now the liberal special interest groups are squawking that this is unfair and too big a price to pay to get their way and overturn the Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court.  The Tuesday morning “buzz” that all was set to ram the bill through the House Wednesday suddenly went silent Tuesday afternoon and there has been no word about a Rules Committee meeting to take up the bill, a requirement before the bill can come to the floor.  Originally scheduled to pass in May, the bill was abruptly pulled from the schedule on May 27 when the NRA said it would score a vote for the bill as against the NRA, which is important to many Democrats as well as Republicans.  The court decision said that incorporated groups should have the same rights of political speech as individuals.

On the Senate side, Democrats are getting nervous about the now weekly attempt to pass new “stimulus” bills that increase the deficit without even one pet program eliminated to offset the cost.  The Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, today saw 12 Democrats vote with Republicans to sink his amendment to the so- called “extenders” bill, to extend some tax breaks, unemployment insurance, etc. on the calendar for months, while the leadership has not yet allowed a vote on a substitute by South Dakota Republican John Thune that would be fully offset.  Could House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer be right when he said even the Democrats have “spending Fatigue?”  We’ll see.

Director of Government Relations :: Larry Hart

After two weeks of wrangling, the House Democrats are closing in on a deal to ram through legislation that would not only overturn the Supreme Court Citizens United decision that gave incorporated groups the same political freedoms as individuals but add new requirements that chill free speech.

Up to now, the National Rifle Association and some left-leaning groups such as the Sierra Club and the AFL-CIO have been squawking about provisions that would force organizations to air names of top donors  in the ads they help fund.  As a result a planned vote before Memorial Day was abruptly canceled.  An attempt by Blue-Dog Democrat Heath Shuler from Tennessee to exempt non-profits such as ACU and similar liberal organizations was shot down by outside groups who have demanded a draconian bill.  The compromise centers around an exemption of super large organizations from these rules, such as those with over one million members and get only a small percentage of donations from private corporations.  This fits the NRA and may allow for House passage.  Word is this will not change the opposition of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  If the deal is sealed, passage could come as soon as Wednesday although the House will be in session through Thursday and possibly Friday.  It’s been expected all along that the House would pass the bill and the real showdown would come in the Senate.

www.conservative.org

Director of Government Relations :: Larry Hart

“I don’t want the EPA turning out the lights on America.”  If you had to guess who made that statement on the floor of the Senate Thursday you would probably pick a conservative who has opposed the efforts that extend back into the Bush Administration to impose a cap on “greenhouse gasses” and raise taxes on energy consumption.  The author of that quote is actually Senator Jay Rockefeller, one of the most liberal members of the Senate, announcing he would vote “yes” on the resolution of disapproval, aimed at the proposed regulations based on the now discredited science of global warming.  Rockefeller hails from West Virginia and knows that these regulations would be devastating to his state’s coal industry. They would also act like a tax on the utility bills of every American.  ACU activists weighed in with thousands of constituent calls and an individual letter was sent to each Senator strongly urging a “no” vote.

Despite Rockefeller’s vote, the votes of five more Democrats and the solid opposition from Republicans, including Maine’s Olympia Snowe and Massachusetts’ Scott Brown, two undecided votes until the last minute, the resolution failed 47-53.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had to twist some arms to switch “yes” votes to “no”, including that of Virginia Senator Jim Webb.  Ironically, the face-saver Reid came up with was a promise to hold a vote on the Rockefeller bill to postpone the regulations for two years.  We’ll have to wait to see what Reid comes up with to prevent that bill from passing.

The EPA effort to impose draconian regulations to reduce greenhouse gases without congressional approval was devised by the Obama Administration as a scare tactic to force passage of the cap and trade bill.  Now that this effort is stalled in the Senate, the prospect of going through with the regs is very real.

On the House side, the expected quick passage of a bill called the “DISCLOSE” Act which would overturn the Citizens United Supreme Court decision giving incorporated entities free speech rights has been stalled.  Groups as far apart as the NRA and the AFL-CIO suddenly realized their programs to participate in the political process would be threatened.  If a compromise is reached next week, the Democrats will try to jam the bill through quickly, so stay tuned.

www.conservative.org

Dear Senator:

On behalf of the American Conservative Union, I urge you to vote “Yes” on the Murkowski Resolution of Disapproval Thursday as well as on the Motion to Proceed to the resolution.

These regulations would allow EPA to set climate policy and regulate key sectors of the economy with no votes in Congress.  It is simply a back-door attempt to implement draconian energy regulations such as those in the cap and trade bill which the Senate will not pass.

The Murkowski resolution is not an attack on science, as the EPA claims, but an attack on the bureaucratic usurpation of power from Congress and the people.

The last thing the American economy needs is a new series of draconian regulations that would raise the cost of energy for every American. The last thing the American auto industry needs is the imposition of additional fuel standards by executive fiat

We are also disturbed that EPA officials have said they are using these threatened regulations as a stick to force the congress to pass cap and trade legislation.  This is a cynical brand of politics that the Congress should firmly reject.

Please vote “Yes” on the Motion to Proceed to the Murkowski Resolution of Disapproval and on the resolution itself.

Sincerely,

Larry Hart
Director of Government Relations
The American Conservative Union

www.conservative.org

Larry Hart :: Director of Government Relations

After a pleasant lull for the Memorial Day recess, Congress is back this week for a four week stretch before the fourth of July.  Contrary to what even some of his fellow Democrats want, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced during the recess that he will insist that some version of the “cap and tax” bill that passed the House come to a vote this Summer.  Reid also wants a companion measure of some kind that would increase oil taxes to help pay for the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  However watered down the bill will be from the House-passed legislation, both measures will serve to decrease domestic energy production, make us more dependent on foreign oil sources and increase the cost of energy, particularly utility bills, to every American.  The continuous effort to decrease energy choices and raise energy taxes since 2007 has been a top priority for ACU and will continue to be with the coming fight.

Since the 2008 election, much of our effort has been aimed at stopping or slowing down the massive legislative initiatives designed to give the federal government control over key sectors of the economy and raise the federal deficit to well over one trillion dollars annually.  This week, on June 10, there is an opportunity to be pro-active by supporting the Murkowski Resolution of Disapproval.  It’s all about the EPA’s “endangerment” finding that would allow the agency to regulate any entity that emits greenhouse gases, thus giving the agency a stranglehold on the America economy. (Does this pattern sound familiar?) Congress has the right to “disapprove” any major regulation like this within a certain time frame.  Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, a moderate on environmental and many other issues, nevertheless is leading the effort.  Because it is a “privileged” resolution, it only required 51 votes for passage, not the 60 required for ordinary bills and the vote is expected to be close.  We will be activating our legion of supporters to put the heat on wavering Senators to pass the resolution, which would be a rare setback for the Obama Administration in the Congress.

During the next month, there will be another attempt  to overturn the Citizens United Supreme Court decision that granted free speech rights to incorporated groups.  The bill as written would actually go further by stigmatizing any incorporated group that has a government contract. The first attempt collapsed in May when Democrats in the House could not agree on a bill.  Also, on June 28, hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan are set to begin.  We are sifting through the volumes of information that are being released about her background and positions and will be arming our supporters with the facts so they can weigh in to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that week.