Let’s Make A Deal?
Hi Hackaroos!
Well, it’s amazing what can happen when the President decides to play the role of Monty Hall in the “Let’s Make A Deal” part of the negotiations. We’ll see if things continue to move in the direction President Biden needs them to on the Hill or if this is just another tease with yet another sliding deadline. That’s where we begin then we turn to the voting rights debate and some Tidbits, including a tough new poll for Terry McAuliffe out of Virginia.
(cover photo cred: Spencer Platt / Getty Images News)
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Is It Finally Closing Time?
Murphy:
So, Gibbsie, do we have a deal? There's now an official beltway insider deal number of $1.9 trillion and the President has jumped into the fray to try to close both sides on that number. Will the Progs accept it? And if so, what did they get for derailing the bipartisan infrastructure deal a few weeks ago? I thought the fear was their own party would screw them out of the $3.5T domestic spending orgy/bill, but… here we are at $1.9T which is pretty much the Manchin number from weeks ago. What’s going on?
Gibbs:
I think we're in deep “Let's Make a Deal” mode. That was very evident during last night’s televised town hall where President Biden openly discussed the give and take nature of legislative negotiations. He really wants something, even an agreement or a framework for one, before he leaves for Europe at the end of next week. Then there is, of course, the Virginia elections coming right after that. The fact is, unlike wine, this negotiation is not going to get better with age. And so, I think there's a confluence of things making this momentum and progress more real than we’ve seen in quite some time. President Biden really started to force the two sides to understand that it's time to stop discussing and time to start deal making. It’s why we have heard more about specific policies and their place (or not) in this bill in the last few days then we had in the previous month. It’s a sign this is coming to a close.
Murphy:
I think Biden's engaged, which means they've got to have some signals at the White House that it’s close and the Progs are ready to accept it because good staff doesn’t put the President out there on a limb until the deal is ready to close. The shot clock is just about out and now it’s on Biden to lead here, or they’ll be in big trouble with Mitch and Murray downtown…. Time to tell the squabblers on the Hill to put up or shut up!
Gibbs:
If you look at the reports from the last couple of days, I don't think it's the Progressives anymore who are the impediment to deal making. I think they understand, despite some of their earlier rhetoric when some argued that nothing might actually be better than something (which was simply delusional), the time to make a deal is now. That’s because just such a deal will result in much of what they want and it’s a big win. At present, it’s all about Senators Manchin and Sinema, and right now maybe more Sinema because, she's basically decided, despite an entire national campaign in 2020 having been run on tax fairness, she's not for any of that, except if you have a worth of a billion dollars. The President was right last night: with a Senate of 50 Democrats, everyone is a President.
Murphy:
Yeah, I thought Gina Raimondo captured my heart, but I'm starting to pine for Kyrsten Sinema because I love her position on taxes. That's probably bad news for a Democratic politician, but keep up the good work.
As for the Progs, we’ll see how they handle their fever dream being punctured when they have to get down to $1.9 trillion. I think there might be room for a slick maneuver here, which would be to pass (now that trust has been established between the warring sides and they know there will be a deal), the infrastructure right now to try to help McAuliffe in Virginia. And then take the time needed to haggle over where the $1.9T will be spent.
Gibbs:
As for Sinema, I'm anxious to know what her theory of the case is for her positions on tax fairness. Mike Murphy and Kyrsten Sinema taking up the shield defending the very small percentage of Americans who think millionaires are taxed too much is not as popular as I think she may think. I would point out, if you're trying to be John McCain, which she seems to be modeling herself after, he voted with his party on about 90 percent of its priorities and broke on a couple of high-profile ones. I'm pretty sure tax fairness is the not right one to become the Democratic John McCain.
Murphy:
Well, she'll have to fight that out. What she might be doing is planning a reelection campaign where she faces a crackpot nominee from the Republican primary and can claim McCain like centrism in the general election. It could be a decent general election, but her big problem is she is almost certain to have a Democratic primary now and it could be rough. But I say, go girl go. I heart Kyrsten Sinema!
Gibbs:
Murphy, I hope she's a subscriber so she understands that the only writer of this fine newsletter who is cheering her position is not of her political party!
Murphy:
Well, Gibbsie, mighty movements start from small numbers!
Will McConnell Cave on Voting Rights?
Murphy:
I think Leader Schumer is laughing all the way to the Senate midterms on this one. First, let me say for the record that the Senate ought to pass the John Lewis bill and I hope some R’s peel off and do that. But on the wider voting rights stuff I think the Dems would like a victory, but are happy just having the issues; it could be a good campaign weapon in the key suburbs next year if the GOP keeps voting down increasingly reasonable bills. If I were Mitch, I’d stop taking the bait, and come up with a version of the John Lewis Act that he can have a bunch of his R’s vote for. But his internal caucus politics may prevent that because he has some real cement heads to deal with (as we saw when he took GOP Senate caucus fire for sensibly caving on the debt limit stand off). But I’ll say this, civil rights is not only a cause for the Dems, it’s a weapon in the midterms for them in the Senate. The Senate R’s should think about that, and do the right thing on the John Lewis bill that will come up soon.
Gibbs:
My only disagreement on that would be, I think that Schumer is feeling genuine pressure to get something done from Democrats who are genuinely worried about the corrosive nature of voting restrictions on our democracy. Trying to explain to everybody, why having control of the White House, the House and the Senate still doesn't lead to the types of legislation you want is becoming harder to do, as was evident in some of the questions President Biden received last night. Civil rights groups, voting rights groups and a lot of Democrats are hopping mad about inaction on this issue. I believe the election message value you talk about here, Mike, is not nearly as impactful and important as a law would be in rolling back some of what states have instituted to restrict voting or to potentially plant the seeds for overturning fair elections. The impediment has been the filibuster, something Biden teased last night he was willing to seek changes in so this legislation could pass. It was maybe the newsiest element of last night’s town hall and something well worth watching once reconciliation gets wrapped up (yes, I’m still optimistic).
Murphy:
And as old pols have always known, but partisans have been watching this to their disappointment have been learning, “control” is a tricky word. There are two types of control in Capitol Hill politics. There's partisan control, and there's ideological control. Sometimes you have both, but not always. Today, the Democrats have partisan control in the Senate, but they don't have ideological control, because their moderates are not on board the Bernie and Biden train. And that makes doing this stuff, as you say, really, really hard.
Gibbs:
I think the new voting rights bill has assuaged any concerns in the spectrum of the Democratic caucus. I think the likelihood that Mitch McConnell is going to let one, let alone 10 Republicans play footsie with voting rights, I’ve got better odds of winning Powerball than that happening. It is a remarkably fragile time for our enduring democracy. We should be strengthening not weakening protections for people to exercise their rights at the ballot box.
Murphy:
Well, there's a tendency for Democratic hysteria on this. And I get it, and I don't like anything that monkeys with the voter market. I think it ought to be easy to vote. But this will not have such a material effect on the elections. None of this makes it impossible to vote. It's just little thumbs on scales. It’s still wrong, but there are more serious attacks on our democracy going on than not having this law passed.
TIDBITS:
Murphy:
In a voting rights-related tidbit. I've been a big believer in absentee voting. I like the California model, where you can apply easily with essentially no restrictions be what's called a “permanent absentee” voter, which means every election they mail you a ballot. But you have to request to be enrolled to vote that way. But recently Governor Newsom decided to extend the special rules that were appropriately put in place during the pandemic, which basically had the state mail every voter a ballot. But now they made that permanent. The problem is California does a lousy job of comparing its voter to rolls to other states. The Golden State does not belong to ERIC, the multi-state compact run by the Electronic Registration Information Center that shares who's the voting list between states. So, if you vote in Colorado by mail and you move to California and automatically get a ballot, Colorado and California don't talk about that, so it's very easy to vote twice. We can't let our enthusiasm for voter participation, and the reflexive knee jerk attack on any criticism of wide-open voting be a reason to let this huge hack of the system continue.
Gibbs:
Murphy what you're opining about is exactly what is in the John Lewis Act, which is, let's have some national oversight of some of these elections. I think there's a lot of activities in this country that are subject to fraud. In a country where a minuscule number of people pick our leaders, I don't see a stampede for trying to vote more than once. In too many instances, I don't even really see a stampede to even vote once! And I think California’s neighbor to the north, Oregon, which runs its entire elections by mail, is a good example of the fact that it can work without any problems. We continue to seek out examples of hypothetical fraud where no actual fraud exists.
Murphy:
Until there is uniform sharing and purging of voter files between states – one way or another – automatic mailing of ballots is a mistake.
Gibbs:
Murphy, my tidbit, is this Politico article about why the suburbs in Virginia is what everybody's watching right now. In 2008, a Democrat won Virginia for the first time since 1964. It was the most Republican of the old Confederate states. That victory, and subsequent wins at the state and federal level by Democrats was in large part owed to the changing nature of the suburbs in the Commonwealth. Could that be about to change, at least in this election? For more on Virginia, be sure to listen to this week’s podcast with Virginia expert/former Congressman Tom Davis.
Murphy:
Speaking of Virginia, one other related tidbit… things just keep looking worse for team McAuliffe. The latest Monmouth poll shows the race is now tied! (BTW, Monmouth is rated A by Nate Silver’s 538 website.)
We’ll have more on where this deal goes and the Virginia race on Tuesday.
Until then, have a great weekend!
Murphy and Gibbs