IS THIRD TIME THE CHARM? (UPDATE 4)

UPDATE 4: The Senate passed the funding for pediatric cancer research unanimously. This was separate bill that had previously passed the House. With the Senate vote, tht bill GOES SEPRATELY to President Biden. They found way to separate this from the CR.

Part of me would really like to see them crash the clowncar, but the part that remembers we’re all aboard that damn thing will be happy if they manage to get it parked without further damage. Everybody seems to want this to happen, and Trump has been convinced to shut the hell up, but who knows how long that will last?

UPDATE - Of course, Elmo is still mucking around, but perhaps Republicans have figured out to stop listening to that uneducated charlatan. According to reports, Elon Musk is casting doubt on the government funding plan GOP leaders announced this afternoon. “So is this a Republican bill or a Democrat bill?” he posted on X. Responding to a post saying, “Americans deserve leaders who actually represent them,” Musk wrote, “Absolutely.”

UPDATE 2: From Meidas Network. Democrats forced Republicans to modify Plan C.

The House was finally able to pass the 3rd Edition of the Mini-Omni-CR. Mike Johnson largely surrendered to Democrats and mostly returned to the original deal he reneged on before Musk started popping off two days ago. There are very few differences between the original deal and this one because Johnson brought Hakeem Jeffries back into negotiations, and the bill passed with Democratic support.

… Every Democrat voted for the bill. 34 Republicans voted against it.

… According to WaPo, these are the things that were taken out of the original deal, with the rest of it remaining the same:

1. Provision aimed at ensuring food stamps are replenished for Americans whose benefits are stolen. Possibly as many as 300K affected, per CBPP.

2. A series of changes to the operations of pharmacy benefit managers — middlemen in the medicine business that negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. (EG attempt to end “spread pricing,” where PBMs charge a health plan more for a drug than what they pay to the pharmacies that dispense it.)

3. Pay hikes for members of Congress -- 4% or so increases.

4. Transferring control of the land in Washington, D.C., where RFK Stadium sits to the District. (No new funds here) .

5. Cruz/Klobuchar bill aimed at cracking down on revenge porn/deepfakes.

6. New and expanded restrictions on U.S. investments in China.

… Hakeem Jeffries: “What needed to come out of the bill came out of the bill.”

Chuck Schumer has reportedly agreed to the new bill on behalf of Democrats in the Senate and President Biden will sign it.

THE FUNDS FOR KIDS WITH CANCER HAVE BEEN RESTORED!!!

UPDATE 3 on speakership:

Breitbart is reporting that up to 25 House Republicans are prepared to vote against Mike Johnson for Speaker on January 3. That is much more than ever voted against Kevin McCarthy. Hakeem Jeffries was asked if Democrats are going to bail out Mike Johnson in the Speaker’s election if he faces a challenge from the far-right: “No.”Mitt Romney told HuffPost though that he thinks when push comes to shove, Democrats will end up voting for Mike Johnson if it comes down to a choice between him or someone like Jim Jordan.

The White House: "While it does not include everything we sought, it includes disaster relief that the President requested for the communities recovering from the storm, eliminates the accelerated pathway to a tax cut for billionaires, and would ensure that the government can continue to operate at full capacity."

From Punchbowl News (If anybody knows what’s going on in Congress, these guys do):

Speaker Mike Johnson will try yet again to pass a short-term funding bill this afternoon, just hours before a government shutdown is set to begin. But this time it seems likely to work.

Johnson is now pushing a short-term funding bill that keeps federal agencies open until mid-March. The bill will include $100 billion in disaster aid for the hurricane-battered Southeast and other states. There’s also $30 billion in aid for farmers and a one-year extension of current agriculture policy.

The measure will be taken up under suspension, according to senior GOP lawmakers and aides, meaning it needs a two-thirds majority to pass. There will be one vote, instead of individual votes on the component parts as Johnson first envisioned.

If House Democrats back it – which seems likely – and the Senate processes it quickly, the measure could be approved by tonight’s midnight shutdown deadline and sent to President Joe Biden for his signature.

Even if lawmakers miss that deadline, OMB has previously ruled there’s no real shutdown if Congress is in the midst of passing legislation to keep federal agencies open.

But the measure won’t include an extension of the debt limit, a major setback for Johnson and President-elect Donald Trump. The pair had been pushing the House to pass a two-year suspension of the federal borrowing cap, a move that would help the president-elect pass a tax cut next year. Johnson faced a revolt by conservative hardliners – led by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and the House Freedom Caucus – which refused to sign off on the plan.

Yet conservatives – having won their showdown with Trump – now face the prospect that Congress will approve $130 billion in emergency funding without offsets.

“Many people expressed their thoughts and bringing in the members is what we needed,” Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) told us. “Originally, this was largely negotiated by staff and that’s not what we need up here. [Johnson] bringing in members is the right path.”

Democrats are, above all else, infuriated that Republicans blew up their painstakingly negotiated, 1,547-page agreement with Johnson. There was a lot that Democrats liked in the initial CR package that will no longer become law.

But putting aside their anger, there’s a sense that the new GOP proposal is palatable. There’s nothing on the debt limit, which means the party maintains a huge area of leverage for the next Congress. Democrats as a whole hate shutdowns. And many want to go home for the holidays, especially the politically vulnerable Frontliners.

House Democrats we heard from this afternoon emphasized they’re waiting to see what House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries decrees before making up their minds. Jeffries is their North Star and they’ve agreed to follow his lead in this fight. The New York Democrat huddled with the Frontliners Friday afternoon and said he wanted to end this fight today, according to sources in the room.

Rep. Jim McGovern (Mass.), the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, was also meeting with Jeffries Friday afternoon.

On the speaker. Johnson comes out of this week with his standing seriously diminished, no matter what the final vote count is.

After the election, Johnson decided that he would only extend government funding until March, an effort to avoid a year-end omnibus spending bill while allowing Trump to put his stamp on federal spending in the new year.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and the bulk of leading Senate Republicans that we spoke to disagreed with Johnson. They told us that Trump should not have a federal spending fight during the opening months of his new term.

But Johnson forged ahead, working with Democrats to craft a monstrosity of a spending bill that included a host of policies completely unrelated to the general operations of government.

Elon Musk, the mega-billionaire who Johnson brought to Capitol Hill to talk about the Department of Government Efficiency, spent hours on X trashing the bill. Eventually, Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance came out in opposition to the package, urging Johnson to lift the debt limit as well.

Johnson then tried to do just that – but that bill failed miserably as well.

At 12:30 p.m. Friday, Johnson gathered the House Republican Conference in the basement of the Capitol. It was a bit of a bumpy affair.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) upbraided Johnson for negotiating with just a small group of members. Johnson said he’s been dealing with an ever-changing environment – in other words, the utterances of Musk and Trump.

Johnson also promised that when Republicans lift the debt limit by $1.5 trillion as part of a budget reconciliation bill, they would cut $2.5 trillion in mandatory spending. Johnson said he discussed with Vance the best way to memorialize this promise. Vance asked if Johnson could get 220 Republicans to sign a letter that said they would not cut Social Security. Johnson said he did not think that was the best approach.

Finally, after more fits and starts, Republican leadership polled the conference and decided to hold one vote on the simple CR until March, with an extension of the farm bill, money for the agriculture industry and disaster relief. Republicans agreed with this strategy.

But in this episode, lawmakers began losing trust in Johnson. They say his decision-making processes are insular, his strategy is uneven and he has lost his sense of the conference’s politics.

To be fair, we’re in the middle of a legislative crisis and tensions are running high. But the speaker vote is two weeks from today. Johnson has a lot of work to do between now and then.

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