House Obstacle For TPP
WH push for "fast-track" trade legislation hits resistance in House. NYT: "...nearly half of the members of the House [have signed] letters or otherwise [signaled] their opposition to granting so-called fast-track authority that would make any agreement immune to a Senate filibuster and not subject to amendment. No major trade pact has been approved by Congress in recent decades without such authority ... Many members have had a longstanding opposition to certain elements of the deal, arguing it might hurt American workers and disadvantage some American businesses. Those concerns are diverse, including worries about food safety, intellectual property, privacy and the health of the domestic auto industry. Others say that they are upset that the Obama administration has, in their view, kept Congress in the dark about the negotiations, by not allowing congressional aides to observe the negotiations and declining to make certain full texts available."
"Tipping Point" On Filibuster
Republicans filibuster another judge. Politico: "Nina Pillard fell short of the 60 votes needed to clear a Republican filibuster of her nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, with the Senate voting 56-41 on Tuesday ... She is the third nominee to the D.C. Circuit that Republicans have blocked this year ... The Senate GOP remains largely united in the belief that the court — which has three vacancies — does not need any more justices ..."
Democrats threaten filibuster changes. Roll Call: "Several Democratic senators, led by Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, met with reporters late Tuesday with another round of warnings about the chances that not filling the seats on the appellate court could lead to a 'nuclear option' rules debate. 'I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There comes a tipping point, and I’m afraid we’ve reached that tipping point,' Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin of Illinois said at the news conference ... 'If the Democrats are bent on changing the rules. Go ahead. There are a lot more Scalias and Thomases out there we’d love to put on the bench,' [GOP Sen. Chuck] Grassley said..."
Issa v. HealthCare.gov
Healthcare.gov staff to testify in House today. The Hill: "House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) will take his turn at hammering the rollout of ObamaCare on Wednesday when his panel hears testimony from five administration witnesses ... Issa is largely following the playbook he used during past investigations ... a slow drip of information, often in the form of redacted documents or partial transcripts ... Critics accuse Issa of framing his findings in a way that misleads the media ... U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park ... is scheduled to appear before the panel after a back-and-forth that ultimately led Issa to subpoena him. The White House had argued that Park was too busy helping the HealthCare.gov repair effort and would happily testify in December."
WH says it agrees with Bill Clinton on grandfathering plans. The Hill: "'The answer is yes,' [WH spokesman Jay] Carney said. 'The president has tasked his team with looking at a range of options as he said to make sure that nobody is put in a position where their plans have been canceled and they can’t afford a better plan.' Carney said the White House has not finalized any potential fixes so far."
Bill Clinton is wrong, says TNR's Jonathan Cohn: "Clinton’s statement makes it seem as if there is some simple way to let people keep their current plans—to avoid any disruption in the existing non-group market while still delivering the law’s benefits. As readers of this space know, no such magic solution exists ... Maybe there’s some muddled, half-solution that will ease the transition without causing real damage. Or maybe there’s some brilliant administrative or legislative fix the experts can’t see. But absent an infusion of extra money—say, to create some kind of transitional assistance fund—any effort to slow changes to the non-group market might not just stop the bad things from happening. It might also stop the good. The latter might outweigh the former, by quite a lot."
House GOP bill to expand grandfathering would "undermine reforms" says CBPP: "By encouraging healthier people to remain in individual-market plans outside the new insurance marketplaces (also known as exchanges), the bill would make the pool of people enrolled in plans offered through the marketplaces sicker, on average, than under current law. That would raise marketplace premiums for coverage in 2015 and beyond (and possibly even for 2014), and could trigger sticker shock when the premiums for 2015 are announced next October."
Strong NY enrollment numbers. The Hill: "Nearly 50,000 people in New York have enrolled in ObamaCare since the insurance marketplace launched on Oct. 1, according to the state’s health department. Nearly 200,000 New Yorkers have completed the full application process ... Those are the largest figures reported by any state so far but includes people who have enrolled or applied for expanded Medicaid under ObamaCare."
Will Hillary Go Populist?
Hillary Clinton needs the embrace the emerging populism in the Democratic Party, argues W. Post's Harold Meyerson: "The surest way she can alienate significant segments of her party — perhaps to the point of enabling a progressive populist such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to enter the race — is to surround herself with the same economic crew that led her husband to untether Wall Street ... [But during] the debate over Summers and the Fed, Hillary maintained an appropriate, if strategic, silence ... If this lack of support foreshadows a realization by the Clintons that they’ll have to come up with a more populist brand of economics than recycled Rubinomics, then the Hillary consensus is likely to hold."
Sen. Warren calls for tougher Wall Street rules. The Hill: "Blasting the Dodd-Frank rules as years late and 'watered-down' by financial lobbyists, Warren said the time is ripe for Congress to return to the drawing board and come up with new rules of the road for Wall Street ... Warren said the rules that are in place do little to prevent banks from becoming 'too big to fail,' and noted that regulators have routinely missed their deadlines for creating new safeguards ... Warren used the speech to tout legislation she has introduced with Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Angus King (I-Maine) that would re-impose the Glass-Steagall Act."
Boehner Flinches On Immigration
Speaker Boehner wouldn't give private commitment to pro-immigration Republicans guaranteeing vote, reports The Hill: "Reps. John Carter and Sam Johnson had worked for more than four years to craft a bipartisan immigration overhaul, risking their political reputations to join with liberal Democrats ... But Carter and Johnson needed something more — a commitment from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that the proposal would move and not be left hanging ... Boehner wouldn’t give it to them. Time and again, the Speaker’s response was the same: Finish your work, introduce your bill and we’ll see what happens. 'Why should we risk our political capital?' Carter said. 'Our leadership is not willing to move forward.'"
But Obama to keep pressure on by meeting with religious leaders. WSJ: "Mr. Obama has long wanted a comprehensive immigration overhaul, but he has kept silent for much of the year at the advice of allies on Capitol Hill. They say any lobbying on his part will turn off House Republicans, who don’t want to be seen as doing his bidding. But over the last few weeks, Mr. Obama has stepped up his public and private work on the issue. Last week, he met with business leaders, who he also lobbied to pressure the House. While Republicans have little interest in helping Mr. Obama achieve his goals, the party has long and deep connections with the business and religious communities."
