GOP eagerly awaits tax reform debate

WASHINGTON—Republican lawmakers desperately want to show unity following weeks of bad headlines focused on President Donald Trump, and they’re hoping tax reform will do the trick.

Last month, party leaders in the House and Senate released an optimistic joint statement with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and national economic adviser Gary Cohn, outlining their tax reform plan. After Republicans failed to coalesce around healthcare legislation, party leaders are feeling the pressure to chalk up a substantive legislative victory—the first under the Trump administration.

“We’re not going to have that problem on this because everybody is going in the same direction,” Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, told me.

Norquist predicts the GOP will finish writing tax reform legislation by Sept. 28, pass it through the House in October, and give it a final Senate blessing before Thanksgiving. Slightly contradicting that best-case scenario, Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., a member of the Senate Finance Committee, told Roll Call Wednesday he doesn’t expect final passage until Christmas Eve.

President Trump continues to blame Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for failing on healthcare, and a flop on tax reform could permanently scar the GOP. But conservatives expect McConnell to deliver.

“Everybody goes ‘Oh, the president is having a fight with Mitch McConnell’—Mitch McConnell doesn’t have friends and enemies; Mitch McConnell is trying to do stuff,” Norquist told me. “The president needs the Senate to pass something, so sit back and get out of the way and let Mitch do his magic.”

Trump spoke to supporters in Phoenix, Ariz., on Tuesday and railed against McConnell and McCain for thwarting his agenda. Meanwhile, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., made his own trip to the West, touring Intel’s facilities in Hillsboro, Ore., and talking up GOP plans for the tax system. But he couldn’t leave without addressing Trump’s latest friendly fire: “I think the president feels that’s a strategy that works for him. I would just say that I think it’s important that we all stay unified as Republicans to complete our agenda.”

Will all the White House staffing changes complicate that effort?

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s departure Friday marked the fourth high-profile staffing change in less than a month. Since taking office in January, Trump has lost a chief of staff, a chief strategist, a national security adviser, a press secretary, two communications directors, and a deputy chief of staff.

Bannon’s exit is significant for some parts of the GOP agenda—immigration and foreign policy, in particular—but not for tax reform, Norquist said. As for the legislative battles Bannon did engage in, such as the spring healthcare debate in the House, he wasn’t always effective.

“The only time I ever interacted with Steve Bannon, he was yelling at me, so I’m not going to shed a tear,” Rep. Tom Garrett, R-Va., a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told WMRU radio last week.

But Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, told The Washington Post that losing Bannon could weaken Trump’s connection to his base: “This looks like a purging of conservatives. With Steve Bannon gone, what’s left of the conservative core in the West Wing? Who’s going to carry out the Trump agenda?”

Judicial gridlock

Conservative groups launched a nationwide campaign this week to untangle Senate gridlock and fill key judicial vacancies.

When President Donald Trump took office in January, he nominated Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, and Senate Republicans promptly confirmed him. Filling the vacant seat on the highest court in the land provided a key victory for the GOP, but other key judicial appointments have stalled.

Court openings are appearing faster than Trump and the Senate can fill them. The president inherited 105 judicial vacancies. Today, he has nearly 140 to fill. And dozens of judicial nominees are stuck in limbo, waiting for Senate confirmation.

On Monday, the Judicial Crisis Network spent $500,000 on digital ads to draw attention to the problem and ask for reforms.

“Democrats are abusing Senate rules to delay and obstruct President Trump’s extraordinary judicial nominees because they want to keep liberal activist judges in control of our courts,” Carrie Severino, the Judicial Crisis Network’s chief counsel, said in a statement. “Because of their gridlock, there are now far more judicial vacancies than there were when President Trump took office, and he began with a record number.”

One of the new ads asks voters to pressure senators to support gridlock reforms proposed by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla.

The Senate has strict rules to prevent hasty decisions, and the body plays a key role in reining in executive power and ensuring only qualified nominees are confirmed. But the Senate could easily tweak some of its rules to expedite nominations, Lankford wrote earlier this month. At the current pace, it would take Trump 11 years to fill all federal vacancies, Lankford noted.

For executive nominees, senators can spend up to 30 hours of debate before they move on to something else. Even for non-controversial nominees such as David Nye, whom the Senate confirmed to a federal court with a 100-0 vote in July, Democrats demanded a full 30 hours of debate. Lankford proposed reducing debate time to eight hours or less, allowing the Senate to consider more nominees each week.

Other conservative groups such as Tea Party Patriots, Concerned Veterans for America, the Susan B. Anthony List, and Concerned Women for America partnered with the Judicial Crisis Network on the new public awareness effort. Together, the groups are launching email campaigns and calling fellow activists to pressure their senators to speed up the nominations process.

“Our activists are paying close attention to which elected officials are obstructing the process,” said Mark Lucas, executive director of Concerned Veterans for America. —E.W.

A not-so-secret money problem

The Secret Service has a money problem.

Under President Donald Trump, Secret Service agents regularly provide protection for 42 people—including 18 members of the Trump family. The agency only protected 31 under the Obama administration, according to USA Today.

Secret Service director Randolph Alles said due to the increased workload, about 1,100 employees will exceed the federal salary cap and overtime allowances unless Congress intervenes. About 6,700 people work for the Secret Service, with roughly 3,300 special agents dedicated to protecting the president and other key officials.

But the agency is not out of money—it simply cannot pay employees above a combined salary and overtime compensation cap of $160,300. Congress could pass legislation raising the overtime cap, which it has done in the past. Last year, Congress passed emergency legislation for agents working during the 2016 presidential election, raising their compensation cap to $185,100. Congress could easily do it again, if needed. —E.W.

Trump support remains steady

President Donald Trump’s approval rating stayed fairly consistent after his controversial comments on racist violence in Charlottesville, Va. A new survey from Public Policy Polling found 40 percent of voters approve of Trump’s job performance, while 53 percent do not. That’s very similar to his July rating, when 41 approved and 55 percent did not. Pollsters contacted 887 registered voters between Aug. 18 and Aug. 21 to ask their opinion about the Charlottesville events of Aug. 12. Among Trump voters, 45 percent said they think white people face the most discrimination in the country, while 17 percent said Native Americans and 16 percent said African-Americans. Most Trump voters surveyed—54 percent—said Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the United States. Only 22 percent said Muslims, while 12 percent said they think Jewish people face the most discrimination. Most respondents, 87 percent, said they have a negative view of white supremacists. But voters did not have a strong consensus on Confederate monuments. Just 39 percent of respondents said they support the monuments, while 34 percent said they oppose them. — E.W.

Hearings for healthcare

After failing to pass healthcare legislation, lawmakers are looking for short-term Obamacare fixes. Next month, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions will hold two bipartisan hearings to talk about solutions with state governors and health insurance commissions. Lawmakers want to provide states with flexibility in waiving some Obamacare requirements and find ways to fund cost-sharing reduction payments. “My goal by the end of September is to give [Americans] peace of mind that they will be able to buy insurance at a reasonable price for the year 2018,” committee chairman Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said in a statement. —E.W.