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Chad Pergram

@ChadPergram

Oct 30

1) The Hitchhiker’s Guide on What Challenges To Expect on Capitol Hill After the Election

Truth be told, just after the election is when the hard stuff begins.

Election day is Tuesday. But in reality, that’s just the beginning of the process. It may take days to sort out who voters chose as President. Control of the House is razor tight. It may boil down to a handful of races decided by a grand total of several thousand votes. So don’t for a moment think we automatically know which party will be in the majority as election officials sort all of that out. There’s a scenario where a thin margin of contested seats in the House could spring several weeks of challenges.

Moreover, Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution dictates that the House and Senate “shall be the Judge of the elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members.” And it’s the new House in the new Congress next year which would decide whether or not to seat people if there’s a dispute.

2) Of course, that’s provided the House can elect a Speaker when the new Congress is Constitutionally-mandated to begin on January 3. Don’t forget that House Republicans incinerated a total of 27 days on two separate occasions to elect former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and current Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

We’ll come back to that in a moment.

In the meantime, let’s run through some of the hazards which could unfold after the final ballot is cast.

Let’s start with when we might learn which party controls either the House or Senate.

Election Day fell on November 8 for the 2022 midterms. But it wasn’t clear that Democrats held their Senate majority until late on the evening of November 12 when Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., retained her seat.

Determining House control took even longer in 2022. Remember that McCarthy touted the possibility that Republicans might marshal as many as 50 seats. Republicans won the House by a thread. But the GOP majority was not clear until November 16.

3) In 2020, most news organizations projected on election night that Democrats would hold the House. But it wasn’t until December that a picture emerged showing how close Democrats came to losing their majority. It took weeks to sort out multiple House contests, decided by very few votes.

Control of the Senate from the 2020 midterms wasn’t even established until 2021. It took until January and a pair of runoffs in Georgia for it to be clear that Democrats tied the Senate – and thus seized the majority thanks to Vice President Harris and her capacity as President of the Senate.

These protracted election determinations are not a biproduct of recent polarization and controversy.
Democrats captured the Senate in the 2006 midterms. But it wasn’t clear until two days after the election once former Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., defeated former Sen. George Allen, R-Va.

It’s likely we’ll have clarity on the Senate sooner rather than later this year. If Republicans enjoy a big night, who won the Senate could be known election night. That’s especially if the GOP is en route to a 53 or 54 seat majority. But if competitive Senate contests in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Montana, Michigan, Nevada, Texas and elsewhere are all tight, it may take a few days to determine which party has the majority.

Regardless, the biggest order of business facing the Senate is who emerges as the new Republican leader.

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Chad Pergram

@ChadPergram

Oct 7

A) Vance on Fox: There's a bucket of money in FEMA that's gone to illegal aliens and that's somehow separate than the bucket of money that should by right go to American citizens. I think that misses the fundamental point that the Biden-Harris administration has turned FEMA effectively into an agency that helps to resettle and helps to deal with illegal immigration that is just fundamentally going to distract focus from their core job of helping American citizens in their time of need...you should have imposed military style command and control. You've got eight different bureaucratic organizations. You've got a lot of different bureaucratic fiefdoms that sometimes delay the provision of necessary resources. You need to empower a military commander on the ground to get helicopters to where they need to go, to get supplies, to where they need to go, to cut through some of the FAA bureaucracy when it comes to, you know, planes and helicopters landing in the right place.

B) Vance: It's like the DMV at industrial scale. And because a lot of folks in North Carolina are suffering unnecessarily. I hope to God you don't have unnecessary loss of life, but I fear that we do. And it all goes back to why do we have a president and a vice president, one of whom is on the beach, the other of whom is participating in fund raisers rather than doing their job. It is incompetence of the highest order.

C) Vance: Kamala Harris has been a complete failure of leadership. Think about this. In 2010, there was a terrible earthquake in Port au Prince, Haiti. The 82nd Airborne was on the ground two days later. There was a disastrous hurricane an hour away from the 82nd Airborne headquarters. It took more than a week for the full deployment to arrive and start helping people out. It's a complete lack of leadership when things like this happen. You need somebody in charge. You need somebody saying we're going to save as many lives as possible. Red tape be damned.

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Chad Pergram

@ChadPergram

May 22

1) Ways/Means Cmte Chair Smith First, Hunter Biden lied about the recipient of a WhatsApp message sent with the apparent intention to threaten a business associate and demand payment. In the message, Hunter Biden twice mentioned he was with his father. In the deposition, Hunter Biden sought to dismiss the message, claiming that he was either 'high or drunk' when he sent it, and in that state, had sent it to the wrong Zhao, and not actually the one affiliated with the Chinese energy company, CEFC. Hunter claimed under oath that the recipient, 'had no understanding or even remotely knew what,...I was even‚...talking about.'

2) Smith: However, phone records in front of the Committee today show Hunter Biden sent the message to the correct Chinese businessman by the name of Raymond Zhao who not only was affiliated with CEFC, but knew exactly what Hunter Biden was talking about.

3) Smith: For several months, the pair messaged back and forth on the same phone numbers, and ultimately an affiliate of CEFC, Raymond Zhao's company, sent $5 million to Hunter Biden and his associates just days after Hunter's threatening message. These documents make clear that Hunter Biden was using his father's name to shake down a Chinese businessman - and it worked. And when confronted by Congressional investigators about it, he lied.

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Chad Pergram

@ChadPergram

Apr 30

1) The Hitchhiker’s Guide To How Democrats Support for Johnson Could Backfire On the Speaker

An astonishing email just hit inboxes around Capitol Hill from the House Democratic leadership team of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) and House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (D-CA):

“We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Motion to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed.”

2) So you have DEMOCRATIC leaders telling their rank-and-file members they support short-circuiting an effort to unseat House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).

Here’s why this is a big deal:

It was thought that House Democrats would protect Johnson in some form if Greene were to trigger her resolution. That hasn’t happened yet. But it was believed that a small number of Democrats might vote to table or kill Greene’s motion, thus protecting him. Or, Democrats might just “take a walk” during that vote, diluting the voting pool in the House. That would protect Johnson by having fewer Democrats vote. Thus, Democrats could inoculate Johnson – without ever taking a vote.

3) But it is a MAJOR DEAL when the entire Democratic leadership team and rank-and-file Democrats say they would vote to protect Johnson.

Great for Johnson, right?

Maybe immediately. But there is a BIG downside here.

Such a maneuver could embolden the smaller coterie of Republicans who want to oust Johnson. And even some rank-and-file Republicans could see that Johnson is only in the job because of the Democrats. Thus Johnson is a “Democratic” Speaker. Especially since he largely did the Democrats’ bidding passing the Ukraine aid bill a few weeks ago, avoided multiple government shutdowns and passed nearly every major bill in recent months with lots of Democratic support – often with more Democratic votes than from Republicans.

This might not undercut Johnson now. But it could give those who might want his job – potentially House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) – an opportunity to use Democratic support as a wedge and perhaps challenge Johnson for Speaker next year or a leadership post in the new Congress if Republicans lose the majority.

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Chad Pergram

@ChadPergram

Mar 25

1) User's Manual to how control of the House could flip to the Democrats before the election.

Control of the House has never changed in the middle of a Congress. But if it’s going to happen, the 118th Congress is as ripe for that possibility.

2) House Republicans face chaos in their conference. Members who planned to retire next January are now ditching Capitol Hill early. The House is an acrimonious place with yet another move afoot to dethrone the Speaker.

3) Fox is told that other Republicans are angling to get out as soon as they can. A big payday in the private sector could lure some members to cash in their voting card early.

First, let’s talk about the length of a given “Congress.”

Read 25 tweets

Chad Pergram

@ChadPergram

Mar 22

A) From colleague Kelly Phares. There is sparring between Cotton and Tester about who is holding up an agreement to vote on the minibus spending bill.

B) Off the Senate floor, the two men came face to face while speaking to separate groups of reporters. Sen Cotton yelled at Tester over all the reporters: "Why don't you ask Senator Tester why we aren't voting?"

Sen Tester yelled back: "You can ask me anything you want!"

C) Tester then spoke to reporters: "Did Cotton say that they're holding amendments because of Jon Tester? Because if he did, he might be full of something that comes off the back of a cow"

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