Playbook PM: McConnell makes his first move in election-reform debate

Jan 05, 2022

By Ryan Lizza, Eli Okun and Garrett Ross

Presented by

We have some important election-reform news that just broke from our own Burgess Everett.

Burgess tracked down Minority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL in the Senate today and asked him about reforming the Electoral Count Act.

McConnell said the 1887 law — which then-President DONALD TRUMP, with the help of many elected Republicans, tried to exploit on Jan. 6 to keep Trump in power after his decisive 2020 loss — "obviously has some flaws," the Kentucky Republican told Burgess. "And it is worth, I think, discussing" how to reform it.

We've been watching this issue closely this week. Numerous experts on election law from across the ideological spectrum have argued that the fallout from 2020 — culminating in Republicans' Jan. 6 attempt to throw out the electoral votes of multiple swing states won by JOE BIDEN — revealed that the law is ripe for abuse and could lead to a future constitutional crisis, especially after a presidential election that, unlike 2020, is actually close. ( Reminder: Trump lost the Electoral College, 302-232, and lost the popular vote 51% to 47%, a margin of more than 7 million ballots.)

Conservative editorialists have recently rallied around ECA reform. On Tuesday, Senate Minority Whip JOHN THUNE (R-S.D.) said there was "some interest" in the idea. Everyone watching this issue has been waiting to hear what McConnell would say.

And today, we did: He thinks it is worth discussing.

Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER plans to offer two proposals in the coming days: the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. The FTVA has no GOP support. The John Lewis bill has one Republican senator backing it (Alaska's LISA MURKOWSKI).

When the two bills fail to win the 60 votes needed to advance — as has happened several times in the last year — Schumer plans to move on to a rules-change vote to pass them with a simple majority. But right now, Schumer does not have the votes for such a change. (A guy by the name of JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.), you may have heard, is not on board with filibuster reform.)

The likely end result of that process? Nothing passes, and Congress fails to address one of the most important issues facing the country.

Two things can happen to avoid that outcome: (1) Manchin and KYRSTEN SINEMA (D-Ariz.) come around and support a filibuster carveout for election reform, or (2) a narrower compromise bill materializes that can win 60 votes.

The second possibility is related to the first: The more that Republicans are convinced that Manchin and Sinema might flip, the more incentive they have to work on a compromise to head off the nuclear option on the filibuster.

Until this week, Republicans have shown no willingness to engage on this issue (Manchin has tried to get them to for months). But now, as Burgess reports, McConnell has opened the door.

"If there remains any path forward on making changes to how we protect the Electoral College process and how we ensure a free and fair vote, I'm open to the conversation," Sen. CHRIS COONS (D-Del.) said in an interview. He described his talks with Republicans "as just the tiniest door crack."

Good Wednesday afternoon.

HEADS UP — A.G. MERRICK GARLAND is delivering a speech about Jan. 6 today at 2:30 p.m. NYT's Alan Feuer takes stock of the criminal investigation of the insurrection, which has sprawled across almost every state, with hundreds of people charged. "But a big question hangs over the prosecutions: Will the Justice Department move beyond charging the rioters themselves" — and potentially to a case against Trump?

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JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH

NEW — Former White House press secretary STEPHANIE GRISHAM is meeting with the House Jan. 6 committee tonight, CNN's Kate Bennett and Ryan Nobles scooped. That follows an in-depth phone call between Grisham and committee member JAMIE RASKIN (D-Md.).

QUITE A SENTENCE — In previewing Biden's speech Thursday marking the Jan. 6 anniversary, press secretary JEN PSAKI said today, "President Biden has been clear-eyed about the threat the former president represents to our democracy."

FASCINATING READ — Washingtonian's Andrew Beaujon goes deep on the unit of Jan. 6 defendants inside the D.C. Jail. The block, known as "Charlie Two Bravo" — or, as some defendants call it, the "Patriots' Pod" — has elements that "sound eerily familiar to the alternate universe that ultra-right-wingers occupied on the outside," as the group of mostly white men talk about themselves as political prisoners and crowd-fund massive commissary accounts. Read on for more, including details about their Sunday-night variety shows and group-watching every iteration of the "Bachelor" franchise

WHAT WENT WRONG? — The White House has informally deemed "a lack of high-level information-sharing" to be a crucial failure in the government's preparation for Jan. 6, 2021, WaPo's Devlin Barrett, Ashley Parker and Aaron Davis report.

— JULIE FARNAM, a senior intelligence official with the Capitol Police, tells CBS' Michael Kaplan and Kris Van Cleave that she warned leadership about the potential for violence at the Capitol in a report on Jan. 3, 2021. "Bottom line," the report said, "Protestors … plan to be armed," and "Congress itself is the target."

THE LONG TAIL — A year after the insurrection, the group of Capitol and Metropolitan Police officers who have stepped into the public eye are still trying to heal, and some have found comfort in their bonds with each other, Nicholas Wu reports in a new profile. USCP officer AQUILINO "GONELL's injuries still affect basic tasks like walking, playing with his son or putting on clothes." And the fallout still disrupts his life: "He couldn't get through a recent lunch thanking officers for their service on Jan. 6 without the FBI calling him."

— AP's Mary Clare Jalonick talks to 10 lawmakers who were trapped in the House gallery Jan. 6, some of whom were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress after what they experienced and now connect near-daily in a group text. "Sometimes it's to get a ride to a vote," said Rep. ANN MCLANE KUSTER (D-N.H.). "Sometimes it's, 'Who's cooking, and can you bring a bottle of wine to a dinner together?' And sometimes it's talking about our treatment for trauma and how we can preserve our democracy."

— Related: "'We have to be there': AP photographer recalls Capitol siege," by J. Scott Applewhite … "Black photographer reflects a year later on capturing the Jan. 6 attack," by NBC's Char Adams

CHART OF THE DAY — Check out this graphic on FiveThirtyEight's live blog, which shows that former VP MIKE PENCE and McConnell saw their favorability rankings among Republicans tank after Jan. 6, while Trump took basically no hit.

CONGRESS

ANOTHER STIMULUS? — As the Omicron surge rolls on, Sens. BEN CARDIN (D-Md.) and ROGER WICKER (R-Miss.) are leading talks to discuss a new round of stimulus spending to help restaurants, gyms, theaters and more, WaPo's Tony Romm reports. A draft proposal totaled $68 billion in new and repurposed spending. Meanwhile, some House Dems are talking about trying to add money to a government-funding bill next month.

— BUT, BUT, BUT: CNN's John Harwood and Betsy Klein throw cold water on that idea , reporting that talks have been shelved. "There might be something small for restaurants," a senior Biden administration official told them. "But the economy is booming, there are millions of open jobs, and we do not believe people should be sitting at home if they are vaccinated and boosted, as most adults are."

POLITICO TECH AT CES 2022 - We are bringing a special edition of the POLITICO Tech newsletter to CES 2022. Written by Alexandra Levine and John Hendel, the newsletter will take you inside the most influential technology event on the planet, featuring every major and emerging industry in the technology ecosystem gathered together in one place. The newsletter runs from Jan. 5-7 and will focus on the public policy related aspects of the gathering. Sign up today to receive exclusive coverage of the Summit.

POLITICS ROUNDUP

2022 WATCH — Thune said he'll announce whether he's running for reelection by this weekend in South Dakota, per CNN's Manu Raju.

CASH DASH — The Republican State Leadership Committee and its partner organization raised $14.3 million in the last three quarters of 2021, including a record fourth-quarter haul, Paul Steinhauser reports in Fox Business. That could set the group up well to pump money into state-level races around the country in the midterms.

PAGING ROSA DELAURO — The expanded child tax credit has substantially reduced rates of childhood poverty. So NYT's Ian Prasad Philbrick examines a thorny political question for its backers: Why isn't it more popular? Among the elements at play: (1) "the pandemic does not seem to have fundamentally reordered Americans' views about the role of government," especially as the economy bounces back; (2) there's tepid support among older Americans who are more removed from the CTC's immediate benefits; and (3) there are lingering questions over who "deserves" to get government aid.

NFTS HIT K STREET — Maybe it's time for us to learn what NFTs actually are. Though Congress hasn't really tackled non-fungible tokens yet, this week the NFT industry got its first lobbyist in Washington. Hailey Fuchs reports that Dapper Labs, one of the largest companies in the NFT space, has geared up to jump into future regulatory fights. "In addition to hiring Crossroads Strategies, the group also recruited ALISON KUTLER, a veteran of the Federal Communications Commission."

THE PANDEMIC

WE WANT CASH, NOT HEALTH EXPERTS' ADVICE — Across the country, "Republican governors are downplaying the rapid explosion of new Covid infections," Gary Fineout and Arek Sarkissian report — "but they still want Joe Biden's help stopping it."

"Governors in Florida, Texas, Nebraska, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina have all recently made it clear: No shutdowns and no vaccine mandates." And yet: Florida Gov. RON DESANTIS and Texas Gov. GREG ABBOTT, among others, have "called on the Biden administration to do more to get the new, highly contagious variant under control," while specifically asking for more resources to deliver monoclonal antibody treatments in their states.

LEXICOGRAPHY — Administration officials said at today's Covid-19 briefing that they don't have plans to change the definition of "fully vaccinated" to apply only to those who've received booster shots — though they emphasized that everyone should get boosted for additional protection.

PUT TO THE TEST — The 500 million rapid at-home tests the Biden administration has promised will start getting delivered to the government in roughly the next week, and will arrive to Americans in the "coming weeks," administration officials said.

STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.

BEYOND THE BELTWAY

COMING SOON TO A FOX NEWS CHYRON — The Chicago Teachers Union forced schools in the nation's third-largest district to completely shut down today (including remote learning) after 73% of its members voted to refuse to show up in person. The union cited safety concerns amid a surge in Omicron cases, but Mayor LORI LIGHTFOOT excoriated the move.

Lightfoot: "There is no basis in the data, the science or common sense for us to shut an entire system down when we can surgically do this at a school level." More from the Chicago Tribune

— FWIW, here's the White House's position: Biden "wants schools to be open. … And he agrees with medical, scientific and education experts that because of the historic work we've done, we are more than equipped to ensure schools are open," Psaki said today.

A NEW LIFELINE — The U.S. is rolling out a new suicide hotline in July: 9-8-8. Now states are grappling with how to fund it, reports WSJ's Ryan Tracy. Mental health advocates are pushing for statehouses to add monthly fees to consumers' phone bills to pay for staff and other suicide prevention efforts. But telecoms and conservatives want to limit fees and keep them specifically focused on answering calls.

MEGATREND — Gun deaths among kids and teenagers have spiked since the start of the pandemic, NYT's Jack Healy reports. The violence has disproportionately affected poor, Black and Hispanic youth, largely in a few dozen major cities. "Toddlers are discovering guns under piles of clothes and between couch cushions. Teenagers are obtaining untraceable ghost guns made from online kits. Middle school students are carrying handguns for protection."

HISTORIC MOMENT — Louisiana Gov. JOHN BEL EDWARDS today is posthumously pardoning HOMER PLESSY, whose case led to the infamous 1896 Supreme Court "separate but equal" ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson. More from Forbes

MEDIAWATCH

END OF AN ERA — Longform, which has collated great nonfiction reads for almost a dozen years, is shutting down. Its podcast will continue to publish. "This project lasted so much longer than I ever expected. It also changed my life," MAX LINSKY tweeted. "Thank you to every single reader, editor, and writer who made Longform possible. A great run."

PLAYBOOKERS

MEDIA MOVE — Peter Nicholas is joining NBC News Digital as a senior national political reporter. He previously was a national political reporter at The Atlantic, and is a WSJ and L.A. Times alum.

TRANSITIONS — Dane Farrell is now director of government affairs at Cascade Associates and legislative director of the Federal Performance Contracting Coalition. He previously was a government affairs associate at Kent & O'Connor. … Jonathan Ellis is now a partner at McGuireWoods. He previously was an assistant to the solicitor general. … Andrea Saul has taken over as global head of comms for Instagram. A Romney campaign veteran, Saul most recently was running policy comms at Meta. …

… Celeste Carswell is joining Twitter as a comms manager working on platform health and safety issues. She previously was a director at Global Strategy Group. … Morning Consult is adding Alex Willemyns as geopolitics editor, Julia Chambers as senior director of client services and Angelina Nikoloff as a software engineer. … Kelly Grieco is joining the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security as a senior fellow within the New American Engagement Initiative. She previously was an assistant professor at the Air Command and Staff College, Air University.