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☆ House passes $1.7 trillion spending bill that rewrites U.S. election law, sending it to Biden to sign
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-23 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Sahil-Kapur-Headshot.Jpg | Sahil Kapur | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

WASHINGTON — The House on Friday voted to finalize a massive $1.7 trillion government funding bill, sending it to President Joe Biden and marking the end of two years of Democrats controlling both chambers of Congress. It overhauls federal election law by revising the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to try to prevent another Jan. 6. The bill funds a swath of domestic programs as well, averting a shutdown and keeping the government funded through next fall. “We have a big bill here, because we have big needs for our country,” outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on the floor. The measure was negotiated by Democratic leaders and top Senate Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

He promises not to let that happen again, insisting he will “actively look for quality candidates” to promote in the 2024 primaries. “In the other states, Trump’s support was so significant — we could have spent a lot of money, maybe trying to come up with a different candidate and maybe not succeeding,” he said. And yet, it's Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. — not McConnell — who's radiating confidence about winning the majority in 2024. He also spent large parts of 2022 feuding over strategy with Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, the GOP Senate campaign chief. Then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and then President Donald Trump at the U.S. Capitol, on Oct. 24, 2017.

So yeah, I’m proud of it,” McConnell said, hailing it as an “extremely important” win for conservatives. He said it’ll mean they no longer “pay a ransom on the domestic side” in order to secure hefty military spending. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill.. said he’s “disappointed” in the unequal spending levels but argued that the Kentucky Republican was using his leverage. Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks alongside Sens. Democrats say McConnell was pushing for deals due to the rising support in the Democratic Party in recent years to end the filibuster.

President Joe Biden will announce six new judicial nominees in his final batch of selections in 2022, a White House official told NBC News, as it looks to two more years of reshaping the federal courts under an expanded Democratic Senate majority. The nominees are for federal district courts — one in Indiana, two in New Jersey and three in California. The White House said they’ll be among the first nominees sent to the Senate early in the new year, when another session begins. Democrats gained a seat in the 2022 election and may have an easier time processing judges in 2023 and 2024. The new round will bring Biden’s total announced judicial nominees to 150, the White House said.

The House Ways and Means Committee voted Tuesday to make six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns public — potentially ending years of speculation about what they might reveal about his business dealings and personal wealth. Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., said the vote will make public the tax returns and a separate report about Trump's tax information. It is the power to embarrass, harass or destroy a private citizen through disclosure of their tax returns," Brady said. Trump was the first president to refuse to make his tax returns public since the 1970s. In order to fairly make that determination, we must obtain President Trump’s tax returns and review whether the IRS is carrying out its responsibilities," Neal said in a statement in April 2019.

WASHINGTON — The $1.7 trillion government funding bill released Tuesday includes extra money for the Justice Department to prosecute Jan. 6 cases. One source involved in the Jan. 6 criminal investigation said Tuesday they were “sincerely grateful” for the boost in funding under the omnibus bill. Proponents of fulfilling DOJ's request have long seen this funding bill as their last opportunity to secure the money, fearing that a Republican-controlled House would block the request early in the new year. Last week, the FBI re-arrested Jan. 6 defendant Edward Kelley for allegedly plotting to kill FBI special agents involved in his investigation. “The Senate should pass this bill,” he said.

It could be the last major bill that passes this year before Republicans seize control of the House on Jan. 3. He has pressured GOP lawmakers to vote against it, forcing Democrats to supply most of the votes to pass it in the House. Capitol Hill leaders decided to attach the election bill and Ukraine aid to ease the process of passage, on the belief that the combined package has the votes to pass. For Republicans, one incentive to pass the bill now is that it funds the military at a higher level than the nondefense budget. “This is a strong outcome for Republicans,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said, arguing that the GOP persuaded Democrats to back down on their long-standing demand for “parity” between the two pots of money.

☆ Jan. 6 committee summary: Ivanka Trump not 'forthcoming'; Giuliani changed tone on stolen election during deposition
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Sahil-Kapur-Headshot.Jpg | Sahil Kapur | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

In some cases, the committee said the purported memory lapses were not credible and appeared to be an attempt to conceal information. Yet the panel suggests that she knew more than she was letting on, contrary to others, like then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone. That appeared to be the case with Ornato,” according to the executive summary. The committee says it has “significant concerns about the credibility of this testimony,” according to the executive summary, and says it will release the transcript of his November interview. The panel alleges Trump also reached out to witnesses, without naming names: “The Select Committee is aware of multiple efforts by President Trump to contact Select Committee witnesses.

☆ Schumer reflects on how Senate Democrats went from infighting to big policy wins and a larger majority
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-18 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Sahil-Kapur-Headshot.Jpg | Sahil Kapur | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

The 50-50 majority, which has been unkind to Senate leaders in the past, seemed to be slipping from his grasp. “Everyone said Democrats are gonna lose a whole ton of seats,” Schumer said during a wide-ranging interview in his Capitol Hill office. Democrats may have held the Senate, but they narrowly lost the House majority to Republicans, which could spell the end of the party’s biggest legislative goals. And despite Schumer’s confidence that he’ll hold the Senate majority again in 2024, the map presents enormous challenges. Schumer said he isn’t giving up on working with moderate House Republicans, including some who won swing districts in his home state of New York.

The committee obtained six years' worth of Trump's tax returns in November, following a years-long court fight for documents that other presidents have routinely made public since the 1970s. The meeting in "consideration" of the Trump documents comes just before Republicans are set to reclaim control of the House — and the committee — next month. While tax returns are confidential under federal law, there are some exceptions — including if the chair of the Ways and Means committee requests them. “No one believes that Chairman Neal requested President Trump’s tax returns so he can study legislation about IRS audits. Every president since Richard Nixon has made their tax returns public.

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Thursday to pass a one-week stopgap bill to temporarily avert a government shutdown as congressional leaders finish work on a full-year government funding package. Just nine House Republicans joined a unanimous Democratic caucus to vote for the measure, an indication of the narrow margins House Democrats will face in trying to pass the full-year funding bill. On Tuesday, Capitol Hill leaders reached agreement on a bipartisan framework for a massive government funding bill to address modern needs and prevent federal agencies from functioning on autopilot, as they have for months awaiting congressional action. To become law, the bill requires a simple majority in the House and at least 10 Republicans to break a filibuster in the Democratic-led Senate. His leadership team was also encouraging GOP members to vote the stopgap bill down this week.

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, beaming with confidence after having proved his doubters wrong and expanded his majority in the midterm elections, vowed without hesitation that the Democratic Party will keep control again in two years. Democrats are defending three seats in the Republican-leaning states of West Virginia, Montana and Ohio. To get there, Schumer promised that Democrats will govern and campaign over the next two years as pragmatists, not ideologues. Schumer pointed to the newly conservative Supreme Court, which rolled back abortion rights and expanded the right to carry guns this year. Instead, Democrats expanded their Senate majority from 50 to 51 seats.

WASHINGTON — Democrats are grappling with how to handle a potential re-election bid by newly minted independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema in 2024, fearing that a three-way battle could split their voters and throw the race to Republicans in Arizona. Asked how the DSCC should handle a possible Sinema 2024 run, Sinema's Arizona colleague, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, “I haven’t given that any thought." Schumer said he has granted Sinema’s request to preserve her committee assignments through the Democratic Party, meaning the 51-49 partisan organization of the chamber won’t change. She wouldn’t say if Democrats should back her but said her working relationship with Sinema won’t change. Prior to her party switch, Sinema had stronger relationships with Republican senators than just about any Democrat.

“Nearly every single state in the nation has passed at least one significant gun safety law since Sandy Hook,” concluded the report, first obtained by NBC News. Gun violence has gone from being a political third rail to a kitchen table topic in just ten years. Nearly every American will know a victim of gun violence in their lifetime.”Former Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., hugs Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., at the Giffords Gun Violence Memorial in front of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., on June 7. Still, gun safety advocates face tall hurdles to achieving other goals, like banning semi-automatic assault-style weapons and large-capacity ammunition. Republicans just won control of the House, almost certainly ending hopes for stricter gun laws for the foreseeable future.

The fate of the bill is also linked to an election overhaul measure to avoid another Jan. 6, which Senate leaders hope to attach to it. The two parties are about $26 billion apart on domestic spending, Shelby said, which isn’t much considering the omnibus package would likely be more than $1.5 trillion. Although they control both chambers, they still need at least 10 Senate GOP votes to defeat a filibuster on a funding bill. The government funding bill is likely the last train leaving the station in the current session of Congress, and a number of other provisions could ride along. Senators have struck a deal on a bill that cleared committee on a bipartisan vote of 14-1 in September.

On Tuesday, for example, Fox News host Sean Hannity said Republicans “have been unwilling for whatever reason” to vote early and by mail. Ahead of the general election, registered Democrats held an 8-point edge over registered Republicans in Georgia in early voting. Now about to enter his seventh term, Schweikert said that Republicans in his state used to enjoy a robust early voting edge. Kirk, who had raised concerns about mail-in voting, changed his tune after the November midterms, tweeting that Republicans must recognize the “power of early voting.” But Johnson has called for a ban on mail-in voting. At the forefront of GOP concerns over early voting is Pennsylvania, where Democrats enjoyed an edge so substantial that Republicans did not come close to overcoming it.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s decision to leave the Democratic Party reshapes the dynamics of the 2024 Senate race in Arizona, creating fresh obstacles for Democrats to hold the seat in two years. But I’m still shockingly disappointed at how awful she continues to be,” said Michael Slugocki, an outgoing vice chair of the Arizona Democratic Party. A bipartisan poll by Fabrizio Ward and Impact Research in September found that Sinema's favorable rating among Arizona Democrats was 37%. The state party censured Sinema last year after she opposed a Senate rules change to pass a major voting-rights bill. “There is every intention that the Arizona Democratic Party will run a true Democrat in 2024,” he said, adding that he favors Gallego.

Come next year, Democrats will have unilateral subpoena power in many committees to compel investigative targets to provide documents and testimony — without needing GOP support. “Our committees will have greater oversight ability, subpoena power. Subpoena power can deal with corporate corruption and inequities, and other problems throughout the country,” he said. “And if using subpoena power becomes necessary, then that’s something we can do.”Other Democrats floated industries that could be the targets of the party's subpoena powers. “But having subpoena power for CEOs and billionaires who think they don’t have to come to Congress to explain themselves will be very valuable.”

WASHINGTON — The House passed legislation Thursday that enshrines federal protections for marriages of same-sex and interracial couples. Thirty-nine House Republicans supported the legislation Thursday and one voted present. The revisions to the bill meant the House had to vote again after passing an earlier version in July. It reflects the rapidly growing U.S. public support for legal same-sex marriage, which hit a new high of 71% in June, according to Gallup tracking polls — up from 27% in 1996. In the Senate, 12 Republicans voted with unanimous Democrats to pass the bill, which sent it back to the House.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer took an emotional victory lap on Wednesday after Democrats won the Georgia runoff and secured an outright majority with a 51st Senate seat. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks at a press conference at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. Last month, after a poor general election showing and before the Georgia runoff, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans failed with moderate voters. The majority leader, who is slated to keep his post for at least two more years, admitted he initially wanted someone else to run in Georgia. “Four years ago, I began recruiting candidates in Georgia,” Schumer said.

☆ Takeaways from the 2022 Georgia runoff: Warnock's win expands Democratic power in the Senate as his own star rises
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Sahil-Kapur-Headshot.Jpg | Sahil Kapur | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

ATLANTA — Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock wrapped up his “one more time” tour with a victory Tuesday in the runoff, defeating Republican rival Herschel Walker to secure a six-year term. But this electoral success is sure to elevate his star, possibly into the echelons of presidential or vice-presidential contenders. Walker improved his margins in some rural counties, particularly in northern Georgia, but it wasn't enough. Warnock's top advisers said they focused heavily on swing voters, and their strategy paid off. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, won their races on Election Day, topping 50% and avoiding a runoff.

But first: The results from five counties will help tell us if Democrat Raphael Warnock is on track to win tonight’s Senate runoff in Georgia. Warnock got 56.9% of the vote in Cobb when he won the Jan. 2021 runoff, and he got just under that last November (56.8%). And in Gwinnett, Warnock got 60.6% of the vote in the 2021 runoff, compared with 58.9% last month against Walker. In rural Chattooga — one of NBC News’ “County to County” counties — Warnock got just 20.5% when he won the 2021 runoff, and he got less than that in the November general election (19.8%). Data Download: The number of the day is … $7.79 billionThat’s how much money was spent on political television, radio and digital ads this entire cycle (starting the day after the 2021 Georgia Senate runoff through today’s runoff), per AdImpact.

☆ Warnock gains early voting edge as both candidates barnstorm Georgia in final day before Senate runoff
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Sahil-Kapur-Headshot.Jpg | Sahil Kapur | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

An early vote that topped 1.85 million showed other positive signs for Warnock, with Democrats enjoying a 13-point edge — larger than the party’s 8-point lead in November’s early vote, according to TargetSmart’s model. But Walker is widely expected to win more of the votes cast on Election Day. Residents wait in line to vote early outside a polling station on Nov. 29 in Atlanta. Walker “needs to win Election Day by double digits,” said Cody Hall, an adviser to Kemp, who said the Republican candidate will have to outperform his advantage from November's Election Day. “But I would just caution everyone that base Republican voters in the last couple of cycles have liked turning out on Election Day.

WASHINGTON — If it’s Monday ... It’s the last day of campaigning before tomorrow’s Georgia Senate runoff. ... NBC’s Vaughn Hillyard covers the closing messages by Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker. And just looking at the campaigns, which get the biggest bang per advertising buck, it’s Warnock at $25.2 million, versus Walker at $10.1 million. But now it’s $11.8 million — behind Warnock’s $25 million and the $20.3 million from Georgia Honor, a Democratic Super PAC. Runoff watch: Walker accuser speaks to NBC NewsDays after she first revealed an allegation of domestic abuse against Georgia Republican Senate hopeful Herschel Walker, a former girlfriend of his sat down with NBC News to detail those allegations.

ATLANTA — Georgia has set new records for early voting again as the two Senate candidates blitz the state ahead of Tuesday’s runoff election. White voters made up 55% of early voters, 32% were Black, and Latinos and Asian Americans each accounted for less than 2% of the total. Among Georgians under 30 years old, 15.5% of early runoff voters didn’t turn out for the general election. A resident fills out paperwork before early voting at a polling station in Atlanta on Tuesday. Another 32% of early voters are age 50 to 64, and 30% are younger than 50.

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