Tag: Senate GOP

Exclusive: Kushner tells GOP it needs to unify behind immigration plan

The Hill logoSenior White House adviser Jared Kushner told Senate Republicans Wednesday that the party should unite behind a 600-page immigration plan he crafted ahead of the 2020 election so the party can provide a positive vision for reform.

President Trump’s son-in-law received a warm reception from Senate Republicans who attended the lunchtime meeting in the Senate’s historic Mansfield Room. 

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Kushner’s bill would be good for the party because it would define Republicans as the party of legal immigration and draw a contrast with Democrats as the “party of illegal immigration,” according to a person in the room.

View the complete September 11 by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Senate Republicans Pick Politics Over Insulin and Gun Safety

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – Tuesday, Senate Republicans have convened the Health and Human Services Committee for a hearing. Unfortunately for the thousands of Minnesotans struggling to pay for their insulin, that hearing is not be on the topic of emergency insulin access. Instead of addressing the important issues our state is facing, Republicans are convening a partisan political fishing expedition.

DFL Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement:

“Despites repeated pleas from Minnesotans who are suffering due to the skyrocketing price of insulin, Senate Republicans have not once held a hearing on the Alec Smith Emergency Insulin Act. Senate Republicans have also completely refused to hear any common-sense gun safety reform bills, despite the broad support these safety bills have among Minnesotans.

“Instead of actually doing their jobs and taking up these life-saving bills, Senate Republicans are holding a hearing designed to score cheap political points. It’s truly shameful that Senate Republicans would ignore the urgent needs of their own constituents to embark on a transparently partisan and ill-conceived fishing expedition.

“Right now, we have the unique opportunity to pass legislation that will save lives across Minnesota. DFL leaders are ready to seize that opportunity and work with Republicans to get things done. Unfortunately, Senate Republicans have chosen politics over people.”

Senate GOP plans to raid health and education funds to pay for Trump’s wall

Instead of Mexico paying for Trump’s wall, Senate Republicans plan to use health and education funding.

The signature promise of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was that he would build a massive wall along the nation’s southern border and that not a penny of it would be charged to the American taxpayer. He repeatedly boasted that he would get Mexico to pay for it.

But now that this lie has been all but abandoned, Senate Republicans reportedly plan to divert billions of dollars from health and education to make up the difference.

Roll Call reported on Thursday that Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL) has written a Fiscal Year 2020 Labor-HHS-Education spending bill allocation “that is about $5 billion lower than it would have been to provide funding for the wall.” If this proposal gets the 60 votes required for passage in the Senate, it would still need to be negotiated with the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.

View the complete August 9 article by Josh Israel on the ThinkProgress website here.

McConnell, Graham leave room for Barr to withhold parts of Mueller report

Other congressional leaders, Trump call on attorney general to release full report to public

While Democratic lawmakers and many of their Republican colleagues called on Attorney General William P. Barr to publicly release the full Mueller report, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham left room for Barr to keep parts of it under wraps at the Justice Department.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III delivered the final report on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections and possible collusion between Russia and the Donald Trump campaign to Barr on Friday.

“The Attorney General has said he intends to provide as much information as possible. As I have said previously, I sincerely hope he will do so as soon as he can, and with as much openness and transparency as possible,” McConnell said in a statement.

View the complete March 22 article by Griffin Connolly on The Roll Call website here.

Trump’s attacks on McCain exacerbate tensions with Senate GOP

President Trump’s disparaging attack on the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is upsetting Senate Republicans who see the repeated insults on a war hero and former pillar of the Senate as unnecessary and corrosive.

Trump has lashed out at McCain four times in the last five days, most recently at an event in Ohio on Wednesday where he spent a full five minutes on the senator — at one point even evoking the McCain’s state funeral.

“I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve,” Trump told workers, who went silent during the remarks, at a tank factory in Lima. “I don’t care about this, I didn’t get a thank you. That’s OK.”

View the complete March 21 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

GOP seeks to change narrative in shutdown fight

President Trump and congressional Republicans are trying to change the narrative on Democrats as the partial shutdown drags into its fifth week.

Republicans, who have seen poll after poll showing that a majority of respondents blame Trump for the shutdown, are eager to corner Democrats by forcing a vote on the White House proposal to reopen the government and provide Trump with $5.7 billion in wall funding.

Whether the gambit works is anyone’s guess.

View the complete January 22 article by Jordain Carney on The Hill website here.

Final Farm Bill Rejects GOP Attempts to Dismantle Nutrition Programs

Thanks to Senator Debbie Stabenow’s (D-MI) and Rep. Collin Peterson’s (MN-07) leadership, lawmakers passed a final Farm Bill that invests in rural communities, provides needed certainty to farmers and producers, creates new opportunities for beginning and underserved farmers, and gives struggling families access to healthy foods. Democratic leaders in the House and Senate worked across the aisle to negotiate a final bill that includes critical support for farmers, rural communities, and working families and rejects conservative proposals like cutting access to food stamps after Republicans held up the bill for months to make these poison-pill demands.
The final Farm Bill protects food stamps, rejecting Republican efforts to cut access to nutrition assistance.
Politico: “The deal is a win for Democrats, who unanimously opposed the House plan to impose stricter work requirements on millions of participants in SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. SNAP helps nearly 40 million low-income Americans buy groceries and accounts for more than 75 percent of the farm bill’s total price tag.”
CNBC: “The massive bill left out the controversial stricter work requirements sought by House Republicans for people getting food stamps, or participants in the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Democrats opposed adding the tougher work requirements that would have cut or reduced benefits for more than 2 million people.”

Continue reading “Final Farm Bill Rejects GOP Attempts to Dismantle Nutrition Programs”

Former Obama chief of staff said top Senate Republican ‘watered down’ pre-election Russia warning

The following article by Karoun Demirjian was posted on the Washington Post website March 4, 2018:

Credit: AP Photo / Ron Sachs

A former chief of staff to President Barack Obama said Sunday that the Senate’s top Republican insisted that a bipartisan appeal for states to step up election security in the face of Russian aggression be “dramatically watered down” before it was issued in advance of the 2016 election.

Denis McDonough said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was single-handedly responsible for downgrading the language in a letter “asking the states to work with us” to better secure election systems in light of intelligence indicating Russia was attempting to interfere in the election. McDonough complained that members of Congress have shown a “stunning lack of urgency about this question,” and he put the blame mostly on Republican leaders in Congress. Continue reading “Former Obama chief of staff said top Senate Republican ‘watered down’ pre-election Russia warning”

Senate GOP’s Immigration Bill Without Path to Citizenship Panned

The following article by Dean DeChiaro was posted on the Roll Call website December 8, 2017:

Democratic lawmakers and even some Republicans have concerns

Senate Democrats and even some Republicans are panning a GOP bill designed to protect undocumented young people and toughen immigration laws because it would not offer the so-called Dreamers a path to citizenship.

The bill, introduced this week by Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley and Majority Whip John Cornyn, would offer Dreamers enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, three years of protected status in return for enhanced border security, a crackdown on “sanctuary” cities and other GOP immigration priorities. Continue reading “Senate GOP’s Immigration Bill Without Path to Citizenship Panned”

Senate Republicans Slip ‘Flimflam’ Paid Leave Proposal Into Tax Bill

The following article by Emily Peck was posted on the HuffingtonPost website November 17, 2017:

The provision is really just a tax break for companies that already offer some paid leave.

Senator Deb Fischer, a Republican from Nebraska, speaks during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2017. The hearing was entitled, “Moving America: Stakeholder Perspectives On Our Multimodal Transportation System.” Photographer: Aaron P. Bernstein/Bloomberg

Tucked inside the Senate Republicans’ latest tax bill is a proposal they’re touting as a paid family leave plan.

It’s not.

The provision, as written in the version of the bill released Wednesday, offers companies a small tax credit for giving workers as little as two weeks of paid time off for family and medical leave. What’s covered by “family and medical leave” is not clearly defined. The concept is modeled on similar legislation pushed by Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) for the past few years.

Fischer seems thrilled. “This is a big step toward enacting the first nationwide paid leave policy in U.S. history,” she said in a statement Wednesday.

While the measure is certainly a sign that paid leave has finally become a major bipartisan issue, what’s on offer here will do little to address the needs of new parents in the United States, according to family advocates, some conservative economists and, well, common sense.

Continue reading “Senate Republicans Slip ‘Flimflam’ Paid Leave Proposal Into Tax Bill”