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Brittney Griner touches down in Texas

WNBA player Brittney Griner landed in San Antonio, Texas, on Friday after a U.S.-Russia prisoner swap ended her 10 months of detention in the foreign country.

Griner’s flight from Abu Dhabi, UAE, where the exchange between herself and Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout took place, touched down in her home state early in the morning.

“So happy to have Brittney back on U.S. soil. Welcome home BG!” wrote U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger D. Carstens on Twitter.

The two-time Olympic gold medalist will receive treatment, including counseling services, at a military medical facility in San Antonio.

Bout, who was serving a 25-year sentence for conspiracy to kill Americans, landed in Russia on Thursday.

President Biden announced Griner’s impending release on Thursday following a phone call with the then-imprisoned basketball star.

“After months of being unjustly detained in Russia, held under intolerable circumstances, Brittney will soon be back in the arms of her loved ones, and she should’ve been there all along,” said Biden.

Griner was first detained in Russia in February for illegally carrying cannabis oils in her luggage and later sentenced to nine years in prison for ambiguous reasons.

Three other Americans remain imprisoned in Russia, including wrongful detainee Paul Whelan.

The former U.S. Marine, arrested in 2018 on espionage charges, said on Thursday that he was “greatly disappointed” by the lack of effort put into securing his release.

Source: TEST FEED1

The Hill's Morning Report — Biden cheers Griner freedom; Congress protects gay marriage

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The White House and Democratic lawmakers each had headline-grabbing achievements to celebrate on Thursday.

Russia released WNBA star Brittney Griner in a prisoner swap after nearly 10 months of detention, President Biden announced at the White House.

On Capitol Hill, House Democrats hailed passage of legislation Biden soon will sign, intended to create a statutory shield around same-sex and interracial marriages, viewed by Democrats as vulnerable to the precedent-challenging conservative majority on the Supreme Court. It is one of the final acts of the Democratic-controlled Congress.

The release of Griner, who turned 32 while in custody, represented a pause in the ongoing confrontation between Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin over Russia’s war with Ukraine.

The New York Times reported that Putin views himself as a dealmaker — and he got something he wanted. Putin swapped the U.S. All-Star basketball center and two-time Olympic gold medalist for a Russian arms merchant, Viktor Bout, who served less than half of a 25-year sentence in the United States on charges that included conspiring to kill Americans.

▪ The Washington Post: Russia wanted Bout back, badly. The question is: Why?

▪ The New York Times: The number of Americans being “wrongfully detained” by foreign governments has risen.

In February, Griner was stopped at an airport near Moscow after customs officials found two vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. Amid sympathetic international attention and protests, Griner was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony on drug charges.

Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, who was with Biden for the announcement, thanked the president, Vice President Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and a long list of administration officials and others who worked to achieve Brittney Griner’s release after what the United States denounced as wrongful detention.

Following a medical evaluation in Texas (The Washington Post), Brittney Griner will be free to resume her life. Cherelle Griner worked for months to keep public pressure on the White House not to forget about her wife, smiling on Thursday in the Roosevelt Room while saying, “Today my family is whole.”

Biden said Russia did not agree to release American former Marine Paul Whelan, who the president said would continue to be the focus of administration negotiations.

During a phone interview, Whelan told CNN he is “greatly disappointed that more has not been done to secure my release, especially as the four-year anniversary of my arrest is coming up.”

“I was arrested for a crime that never occurred,” he said in a call from the penal colony where he is being held in a remote part of Russia. “I don’t understand why I’m still sitting here.” Whelan, who is an American, Irish, British and Canadian citizen, was detained at a Moscow hotel in December 2018 by Russian authorities who alleged he was involved in an intelligence operation. He was convicted and sentenced in June 2020 to 16 years in prison in a trial U.S. officials denounced as unfair. “It’s quite obvious that I’m being held hostage,” he said.

Meanwhile, at the U.S. Capitol, the House approved the Respect for Marriage Act with fanfare and sent the bipartisan measure to Biden. Just a few years ago, enactment of such legislation would have been politically out of reach, but prominent gay Republican donors and operatives helped smooth the way for its passage. 

Twelve Republican senators joined every Democrat in voting “aye” (The New York Times). Openly LGBTQ lawmakers praised the bill as a triumph for equality while acknowledging its limitations. In the House, 10 Republicans who voted for the version of the bill that passed in July changed their votes on Thursday. Seven moved from “yes” to “no,” two switched from “no” to “yes,” and one, Rep. Burgess Owen (R-Utah), voted “present” (The Hill).

“Voting to pass the Respect for Marriage Act today is one of the proudest votes I’ve ever cast,” Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) wrote Thursday on Twitter. “I’m humbled. I’m honored. And I’m hopeful — as the fight for LGBTQ+ rights continues.”

“Being gay is normal. Gay friends, gay family members, and gay marriages are normal,” Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), one of two openly LGBTQ senators, tweeted.

“Our Respect for Marriage Act now heads to the President’s desk — ensuring same-sex married couples enjoy the same protections as all other married couples. It’s a great day in America,” Sinema added (The Hill).

When enacted, the Respect for Marriage Act will repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that defines marriage for federal purposes as a union between one man and one woman.

BREAKING: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema says she is switching her party affiliation to independent, Politico reported this morning. The decision is a blow to Democrats’ narrow majority heading into 2023 and upends Senate calculations and Washington politics. In a 45-minute interview, the first-term senator said she will not caucus with Republicans and suggested that she intends to vote the same way she has for four years in the Senate. “Nothing will change about my values or my behavior,” she said. 

Related Articles

▪ WFAA-TV: Russian state media video shows Griner departing Russia and speaking on a plane to Abu Dhabi.

▪ Instagram, The Washington Post: Russian state media footage shows Griner and Bout during the prisoner swap at the Abu Dhabi airport on Thursday.

▪ The Dallas Morning News: Texas reaction is divided over the U.S. prisoner swap to release Griner, a Houston native, from Russia. Griner is believed to have landed in San Antonio this morning.

▪ The Hill’s Niall Stanage: Why Biden’s decision to approve the swap for Griner with Russia poses big political risks.

▪ The Hill: The White House disputes Saudi, UAE accounts of mediating Griner’s release. 

▪ Reuters: U.S. citizen Sarah Krivanek, who spent almost 11 months in detention in Russia on charges of causing light injuries to her civil partner, was ordered deported and left Russia on Thursday.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ MORE CONGRESS

The House on Thursday passed the annual defense authorization bill, sending the mammoth $847 billion measure to the Senate for consideration ahead of the year-end deadline.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), seen as a must-pass for Congress, was approved in a bipartisan 350-80 vote. It includes an $817 billion top line for the Defense Department and about $30 billion to fund nuclear activities in the Department of Energy.

The bill lays out the blueprint for how the billions of dollars will be allocated at the Pentagon, including a 4.6 percent pay raise for both service members and the agency’s civilian workforce, new weapons programs and equipment upgrades, and new programs and personnel policies.

The final bill came together after months of negotiations between lawmakers of both parties and chambers, which bore victories for those on both sides of the aisle. In a win for Republicans, the measure includes language that repeals the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for service members, which has been in place since August 2021. And progressives saw a significant victory after a deal on energy project permitting reform, which Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) advocated, was excluded from the text (The Hill).

The elimination of the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate represents a surprise concession by Democrats and shows how the politics of the pandemic have changed, The Hill’s Nathaniel Weixel reports. Vaccine mandates have been championed by the Biden administration, congressional Democrats and blue state governors as an important tool in the fight against the coronavirus.  

But by giving in to Republican demands, Democrats are acknowledging the reality that the public has moved on, and there’s no longer a widespread appetite for any sort of virus-fighting rules. 

Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus, meanwhile, are frustrated by the House Democratic leaders’ decision to fast-track the NDAA without tackling voting rights. As The Hill’s Mike Lillis writes, the members saw the must-pass Pentagon package as their last best chance to address election protections this year. The critics are grumbling that party leaders simply haven’t been aggressive enough in efforts to force the Senate to adopt the various voting rights bills passed by the House this Congress.

“It seems like the Black Caucus has always supported leadership in what it’s tried to do, but leadership of this Caucus hasn’t returned the favor, always,” said Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), a member of both the Black Caucus and the progressive “squad.” “And so now we’re in a precarious position where voting rights will continue to be under attack — state to state — will continue to be gutted.”

While the passage of the NDAA takes one major piece of legislation off lawmakers’ plates, there’s still the issue of a looming government shutdown if Congress doesn’t pass a spending bill by the end of next week. Lawmakers are digging their heels deeper into a high stakes spending tug of war, The Hill’s Aris Folley writes, and while negotiators have been exchanging topline figures for a potential omnibus funding bill that many are hopeful to see pass this month, members say it’s also becoming clearer negotiations will likely need to extend beyond next week’s deadline — meaning Congress would be required to pass a stopgap spending measure to keep the lights on.

▪ Politico: Ope, sorry: Midwestern House Dems push for leaders between the coasts.

▪ The Hill: Frustration swirls in House GOP over Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (Calif.) Speakership opposition.

In the Senate, Democrats now have unilateral subpoena power after gaining a seat in the midterm election, giving them a true majority — 51-49 — for the first time in eight years. Now they must figure out what to do with the new power, and whether to use it to counter what are expected to be a slew of House GOP investigations of the Biden administration (The Hill). 

➤ POLITICS

Prosecutors have urged a federal judge to hold former President Trump’s office in contempt of court for failing to fully comply with a subpoena to return all classified documents in his possession, The Washington Post reports. The hearing is scheduled for today. 

The request follows months of mounting frustration from the Justice Department that spiked in June, after Trump’s lawyers assured prosecutors that a diligent search had been conducted for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. But the FBI amassed evidence that was later confirmed through a court-authorized search showing that many more remained.

The former president is under investigation for three potential crimes: the mishandling of classified documents, obstruction and the destruction of government records.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection is considering criminal referrals for at least four individuals in addition to Trump, CNN reports. The panel is weighing criminal referrals for former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, right-wing lawyer John Eastman, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, though the committee has not officially decided whom to refer to the Justice Department for prosecution and for what offenses.

Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) announced Wednesday that the panel’s long-awaited report will be released on Dec. 21 (ABC News).

▪ Roll Call: Once again, the GOP has an opportunity to win the Senate in 2024.

▪ BuzzFeed News: “I did what I had to do”: Christian Walker opened up about how he helped bring down his dad, Herschel Walker, in his Senate campaign.

▪ FiveThirtyEight: Georgia can’t be reduced to one political color. Why red, blue and purple can only tell us so much.

Democrats are trying to stop outside groups from forming a bipartisan presidential ticket in 2024, warning voters that the effort is political malpractice, Axios reports. A third-party candidacy could hand the presidency to Trump, warns a new report from Third Way.

“If a third-party candidate blew past historic precedent and managed to win enough Electoral Votes to keep any candidate from getting to 270, then the outcome would be decided in the House of Representatives, which is controlled by Republicans and where Donald Trump would prevail,” the report says.

The report comes as voters’ dissatisfaction with both parties — and with candidates considered too extreme on either side — grows and has reenergized a quiet campaign to recruit and fund an alternative presidential ticket. Over the course of this year, the bipartisan group No Labels has been working to build a $70 million operation to potentially support a third-party option in 2024. While No Labels didn’t rule out boosting an alternative to Biden should he run again, it told Axios that the group won’t offer a presidential ticket “if that choice isn’t needed.”

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Iran on Thursday morning carried out the first known execution of a prisoner arrested during months-long protests, according to state media, marking a major escalation that sent shock waves throughout the country. Rights groups warned the move could signal an even bloodier phase in the violent crackdown on the nationwide uprising (The Washington Post and Reuters).

“Iranian authorities have executed a protester, sentenced to death in show trials without any due process,” Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Norway-based group Iran Human Rights, tweeted, saying the execution “must be [met] with STRONG reactions otherwise we will be facing daily executions of protesters… This execution must have rapid practical consequences internationally.”

Russian strikes have killed at least 10 people in eastern Ukraine, marking the deadliest single Russian attack on civilians in weeks. A barrage of artillery fire struck the town of Kurakhove on Wednesday, hitting a market, a bus station and several residential buildings (The Wall Street Journal). Moscow also shelled the entire front line in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv reported, as part of what appears to be the Kremlin’s scaled-back ambition to secure only the bulk of territory it has claimed (Reuters).

“The Russian army carried out a very brutal, absolutely deliberate strike at Kurakhove,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address. “Precisely at civilians. At ordinary people.”

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Police seize weapons in far-right German coup-plot investigation.

▪ The New York Times: China and Saudi Arabia sign a strategic partnership as Xi Jinping visits the kingdom. The Chinese leader’s trip has been scant on details and heavy on ceremony, but it showcases the growing ties between Beijing and a longtime American ally.

▪ Reuters: “It’s dead out here”: China’s slow exit from zero-COVID.

▪ Reuters: Japan, Britain and Italy to build joint jet fighter.

▪ The Globe and Mail: Inside Myanmar’s civil war: A photojournalist’s journey to the front line with insurgent groups.

OPINION

■ Brittney Griner’s release and the strategic value of good diplomacy, by Tara D. Sonenshine, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3uCSfVC

■ Fed’s cryptocurrency pilot opens door for dangerous retail option, by David Waugh, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3HokJtS

WHERE AND WHEN

🎄 A note to readers: Morning Report will be helmed through Dec. 22 by The Hill’s Kristina Karisch; co-writer Alexis Simendinger will wrap up a newsy 2022 by taking a holiday break. 

👉 The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

⭐ INVITATION: Join a newsmaker event hosted by The Hill andthe Bipartisan Policy Center on Tuesday, Dec. 13, 10 a.m. ET (hybrid), “Risk to Resilience: Cyber & Climate Solutions to Bolster America’s Power Grid,” withRep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), Energy Department Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response Director Puesh Kumar and more. Information for in-person and online participation is HERE.

The House will convene at noon on Monday. 

The Senate will convene at 3 p.m. on Monday and resume consideration of the nomination of Tamika Montgomery-Reeves to be a U.S. circuit judge for the Third Circuit.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 9 a.m. He has no public events on his schedule as of this morning.

Vice President Harris is in Washington and has no public schedule.

First lady Jill Biden will deliver opening remarksat 11:45 a.m. at a virtual town hall event to urge individuals, especially those 50 and older, to get updated COVID-19 vaccine doses during the holiday season. Information about locating and scheduling COVID-19 vaccine and booster doses can be found at Vaccines.gov. The White House discussion will include retiring National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci; Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator; and AARP Chief Executive Officer Jo Ann Jenkins. The event will be live streamed at www.whitehouse.gov/live.  

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will join Attorney General Merrick Garland, White House Counsel Stuart Delery and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough at 2 p.m. at an interagency roundtable about legal aid and the justice system. 

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 1 p.m. 

ELSEWHERE

➤ WORKERS

Airport workers across the country participated in rallies and walkouts Thursday to draw attention to their working conditions and legislation that could improve them.

Workers at 15 U.S. airports, including ones in Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City and Phoenix, participated in on-site rallies. Formal strikes occurred at Boston’s Logan International Airport, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and the Newark Liberty International Airport.

“Airport workers like me and working people all across the economy are fed up,” Verna Montalvo, a cabin cleaner at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, said in a statement provided by the Service Employees International Union, which is planning the action. “Without us, no one could travel safely to visit their families over the holidays. Seeing smiles on passengers’ faces gives me a huge sense of pride, but it comes at a huge cost when I can’t support my own family on poverty wages.”

The rallies are in support of the Good Jobs for Good Airports Act, introduced in June by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass). It would set a minimum wage of $15 for airport service workers and ensure workers’ benefits (NBC News and The Hill).

▪ Bloomberg News: Blue Apron to cut 10 percent of jobs as it struggles to stay afloat.

▪ Vox: Layoffs, buyouts, and rescinded offers: Amazon’s status as a top tech employer is taking a hit. A leaked memo shows Amazon was concerned with attracting and retaining top engineers earlier this year.

A drop in the growth of unit labor costs this week has economists pointing to corporate profits as a driver of inflation, writes The Hill’s Tobias Burns. Unit labor costs, which are measured by the Labor Department to determine how much businesses are paying for workers to produce their goods and services, have been getting outpaced by profits over the last several quarters, complicating an argument by the Federal Reserve that it’s an excess of consumer demand for goods and services that has inflation hovering around 40-year-highs. 

➤ PANDEMIC & HEALTH 

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday cleared doses of the updated COVID-19 vaccines for children younger than age 5. The FDA’s decision aims to better protect the littlest kids amid an uptick in COVID-19 cases around the country — at a time when children’s hospitals already are packed with tots suffering from other respiratory illnesses including the flu.

“Vaccination is the best way we know to help prevent the serious outcomes of COVID-19, such as hospitalization and death,” said Peter Marks, FDA’s vaccine chief (NPR).

Of all the groups still threatened by COVID-19 — including the elderly and the immunocompromised — it is pregnant people who seem the most unaware of the risks.

The virus can kill pregnant individuals and can result in miscarriage, preterm births or stillbirths even in cases of asymptomatic or mild illness. The infection may also affect the baby’s brain development. Yet only 70 percent of new parents completed the primary vaccination series for COVID-19 before or during pregnancy. Since early September, only 15 percent have opted for a booster shot (The New York Times).

The “pandemic pet” phenomenon may have been more anecdote than fact, as it turns out: dog and cat adoptions actually declined in 2020, shelter data show. But the post-pandemic shelter crisis of 2022 is real, writes The Hill’s Daniel de Visé. Shelters around the nation have been overwhelmed this year, as adoptions lag and a steady stream of families surrender dogs and cats they no longer want, and factors include the end of virtual work and the rising cost of kibble. 

Information about COVID-19 vaccine and booster shot availability can be found at Vaccines.gov.

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,084,236. Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths are 2,981 for the week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (The CDC shifted its tally of available data from daily to weekly, now reported on Fridays.)

THE CLOSER

And finally …  👏👏👏 Bravo to winners of this week’s Morning Report Quiz! Inspired by the Georgia runoff on Tuesday, we posed trivia questions about close and not-so-close elections.

Here’s who went 4/4 into the weeds of U.S. election history: Paul Harris, Patrick Kavanagh, Bob McLellan, William Grieshober, Harry Strulovici, Ki Harvey, Terry Pflaumer, M.R. Tofalo, Lori Cowdrey Benso, Sharon Banitt, Randall Patrick, Len Jones and Steve James.

They knew that in 1972, former President Nixon won reelection overwhelmingly, securing the electoral votes of 49 states. The exception was Massachusetts. 

Former President Obama and his party suffered significant losses in the 2010 midterm elections. During a post-election news conference, Obama called the result “a shellacking.”

John Quincy Adams’s presidential victory was ultimately determined by a single vote in the House of Representatives.

The closest election in Senate history, resulting in a two-vote difference after a recount, occurred in the 1974 New Hampshire race between Republican Louis Wyman and Democrat John Durkin. 

Stay Engaged

We want to hear from you! Email: Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch. Follow us on Twitter (@asimendinger and @kristinakarisch) and suggest this newsletter to friends!

Sinema leaving Democratic Party, will register as independent

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has announced that she will leave the Democratic Party and officially register as an independent.

“I’ve registered as an Arizona independent. I know some people might be a little bit surprised by this, but actually, I think it makes a lot of sense,” Sinema said in an interview Thursday with CNN’s Jake Tapper in her Senate office.

“I’ve never fit neatly into any party box. I’ve never really tried. I don’t want to,” she added. “Removing myself from the partisan structure — not only is it true to who I am and how I operate, I also think it’ll provide a place of belonging for many folks across the state and the country, who also are tired of the partisanship.”

The announcement from Sinema comes just days after Democrats solidified a 51-49 majority in the upper chamber with Sen. Raphael Warnock’s win in Georgia.

Sinema declined to say that she will caucus with Democrats like independent Sens. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and Angus King (Maine), but the Arizona senator said she plans to continue in her committee assignments.

“When I come to work each day, it’ll be the same,” Sinema said. “I’m going to still come to work and hopefully serve on the same committees I’ve been serving on and continue to work well with my colleagues at both political parties.”

This developing report will be updated.

Source: TEST FEED1

Labor costs point to corporate profit as main inflation driver

The continued drop in labor costs has economists pointing to private sector profits as a main driver of inflation, undercutting arguments from the Federal Reserve regarding its plan to bring down consumer prices that remain around 40-year highs.

Unit labor costs, which are measured by the Labor Department to determine how much businesses are paying for workers to produce their goods and services, have been getting outpaced by profits over several quarters, leading economists to call out a trend.

Paul Donovan, an economist with Swiss Bank UBS, wrote in a note to investors saying that Wednesday’s labor cost numbers showed again that corporate profits are rising faster than labor costs. 

“Today’s inflation is more about margin expansion than labor costs,” he wrote. Earlier this week, Donavan said the slowing labor cost growth underscored “how little of the current inflation is labor related.”

That’s a very different argument from the one put forward by many U.S. policymakers, both in the political and economic sectors.

Speaking on CNBC Thursday morning, Rep. Kevin Brady (Texas), the top Republican on the Ways and Means committee, sounded a familiar refrain, arguing the labor situation in the U.S., which has been characterized by a tight job market and rising nominal wages, was behind lingering consumer inflation.

“Both the White House and the Fed don’t understand the worker crisis we’re in and how that’s driving higher prices persistently for a long time, as well,” Brady said.

Ways and Means Republicans have gone so far as to blame inflation on a “wage-price spiral,” the mutually reinforcing pressure of wages on prices and vice versa that led the Nixon administration to freeze both for 90 days during high inflation in the 1970s.

“The dangerous wage-price spiral created by President Biden’s poor economic policies ensures high and persistent inflation for the future,” Brady said in a statement earlier this month. “The White House is absolutely clueless about the very real labor shortage still hurting Main Street businesses and driving prices higher.”

At their latest meeting in November, Federal Reserve bankers disagreed, saying that a wage-price spiral “had not yet developed.” They noted that “ongoing tightness in the labor market could lead to an emergence” of one, but this week’s loosening unit labor cost data could make that less likely.

Despite the Fed’s observation that a wage-price spiral has yet to occur, the central bank hasn’t been shy about linking the effects of wages upon inflation.

Bankers assessed in their November meeting that “the factors that had boosted inflation since the middle of last year—most notably, strong wage growth and the effect of supply constraints on prices—would persist for longer than previously thought.”

But a November research paper from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) – sometimes referred to as the central bank for central banks – downplayed this relationship in the global economy. BIS found that even when wage-price spirals do take hold in advanced economies, they don’t typically spiral out of control, running counter to their name and to the Nixon-era example that made them famous. Rather, they tend to peter out.

“Surprisingly, only a small minority of such episodes were followed by sustained acceleration in wages and prices. Instead, inflation and nominal wage growth tended to stabilize, leaving real wage growth broadly unchanged,” BIS researchers found.

“When focusing on episodes that mimic the recent pattern of falling real wages and tightening labor markets, declining inflation and nominal wage growth increases tended to follow – thus allowing real wages to catch up. We conclude that an acceleration of nominal wages should not necessarily be seen as a sign that a wage-price spiral is taking hold,” the researchers said.

Such findings put the focus back on profits as a reason that inflation may be proving sticky. But economists caution that profits in some sectors of the economy are contributing more to inflation than profits in other sectors, and that ascribing the effect of profits upon inflation uniformly misses the mark.

“There are some corporations that are earning extraordinary profits right now. That’s even a technical term – ‘extraordinary.’ That’s like oil and gas and meatpacking,” Claudia Sahm, former Federal Reserve banker and founder of Sahm Consulting, said in an interview.

“But a lot of small business owners are getting crushed. Everything they need to put stuff on the shelves has gone up in price. They’re not making a lot in profits, and they’re a very important part of the economy. So I don’t like to lump everybody together.”

Economists have expressed doubts about whether interest rate hikes can address profit-driven inflation, even though it might not be evenly distributed across industries and economic sectors.

“Since the labor share [of inflation] is declining and it’s coming from profits, it’s hard for the Fed to have policies that can address that. Raising interest rates don’t rein those things in,” Bill Spriggs, chief economist with the AFL-CIO labor union federation, told The Hill. 

Spriggs said that higher rates may in fact be working in the opposite direction.

“They can set a certain mentality, particularly with the way the Fed is talking about things. The Fed is suggesting that it would tolerate a recession in order to lower prices. If I’m a business person, why would that make me want to lower prices and drop my profits now, since you’re telling me that next quarter I’m going to start losing money?” he said.

More targeted proposals to fight inflation and price increases by businesses have been advanced by Democrats in recent months, mainly in the form of windfall profits taxes on the oil sector, which the United Nations has singled out as a primary source of commodity inflation.

One such proposal was put forward in California this week by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D).

“California’s price gouging penalty is simple — either Big Oil reins in the profits and prices, or they’ll pay a penalty,” Newsom said in Monday statement. “Big Oil has been lying and gouging Californians to line their own pockets long enough. I look forward to the work ahead with our partners in the legislature to get this done.”

Democrats Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) have their own similar proposal on the national level, which would levy a tax on the difference between the current price of oil per barrel and the average cost between 2015 and 2019. 

“Big corporations, especially Big Oil, are using inflation as an excuse to gouge consumers, hoard record profits, and raise CEO pay and bonuses. We’ve got to protect hardworking Americans from corporate profiteering, and passing my bill to claw back Big Oil windfall profits is the right place to start,” Whitehouse said in a statement to The Hill.

Brady said in an October statement that any “so-called windfall profits tax would slash production, raise prices on American families, make [the] U.S. more dependent on foreign oil.”

“We’ve seen this mistake before,” he said. “This is a Carter-era tax hike that slashed production while making the U.S. more dependent on foreign oil. This couldn’t come at a worse time for American families suffering under 40-year high inflation, who are on track to pay the highest prices to keep their homes warm in 25 years.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Repeal of military vaccine mandate shows changing pandemic politics

The elimination of the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate as part of the defense policy bill represents a surprise concession by Democrats, and shows how the politics of the pandemic have changed. 

Vaccine mandates have been championed by the Biden administration, congressional Democrats and blue state governors as an important tool in the fight against the coronavirus. 

The Pentagon’s policy took effect in August 2021 during the height of the omicron wave, when the Biden administration was pulling out all the stops to jump-start lagging vaccination rates. The mandate has led to the dismissal of nearly 8,500 service members. 

Cash giveaways, dating app partnerships and even free college tuition were barely moving the needle, so the administration decided new rules were necessary to force the issue.

As a result, the White House announced a slew of vaccine-or-test mandates that would cover roughly two-thirds of all public and private sector workers.

Republicans have been steadfast in their opposition. The Supreme Court eventually blocked the administration’s vaccine-or-test mandate for large employers. The court allowed a vaccine-only mandate for health providers at federally funded facilities.  

The White House and the Defense Department said the military’s vaccine mandate was essential in protecting troops from COVID-19. The Pentagon has long mandated certain vaccines, and the coronavirus one was no different. The department said it would prevent outbreaks of the virus that could hit entire units, putting military readiness at risk. 

Republicans in both chambers saw the annual defense bill as an opportunity to get rid of the Pentagon’s mandate, and threatened to block the $847 billion legislation.

But by giving in to Republican demands, Democrats acknowledged that the public has moved on, and there’s not much appetite for any sort of virus-fighting rules.

“The policy that the Department of Defense implemented in August of 2021 … was absolutely the right policy. It saved lives and it made sure our force was as ready as it possibly could be in the face of the pandemic,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, (D-Wash.), said during a speech before the House Rules Committee defending the authorization bill. 

“As we are here in December 2022, does that August 2021 policy still make sense? We don’t believe that it is, and I don’t believe that it is,” Smith said.

Smith noted that the Pentagon’s policy is outdated, because it only requires a soldier to get the primary vaccine series. 

“Someone who got that shot back in April 2021, that is not protecting you at all today. I think the science on that is very clear, some 18 months later. But the policy says if you got that, you’re good,” Smith said. “So, I think it’s time to update the policy.”

Public health experts agreed that the policy is outdated. The majority of COVID-19 infections are caused by substrains of the omicron variant, and the administration is trying to convince the public to get booster shots that specifically target the omicron variant.

“If it’s not going to be maintained as an up-to-date requirement, it isn’t going to be as effective as it could be, for sure,” said Jen Kates, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Kates said the vaccines still work at keeping people from getting severely ill, and mandates help boost vaccination rates. Eliminating the mandate was done in the interest of political expediency.

“I would argue there are unique reasons why the military might require a vaccination. But because COVID has become so politicized, there’s no appetite to go down that road,” Kates said. 

Opponents of the vaccine have argued mandates are not effective, because the vaccine won’t entirely prevent transmission or keep someone from getting sick. They also pointed to President Biden’s public comments that the pandemic is “over.”

Republican leaders celebrated the inclusion of the repeal, while also vowing to continue the fight against the administration’s COVID-19 mitigation strategy next term when Republicans control the House. 

“Make no mistake: this is a win for our military,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in a statement Tuesday. He said when the GOP takes over the House next year, Republicans will “work to finally hold the Biden administration accountable and assist the men and women in uniform who were unfairly targeted.”

The defense legislation easily passed the House on Thursday, and the Senate is expected to vote next week.

Democrats characterized removing the vaccine mandate as a necessary compromise in order to get Republicans to support the legislation. 

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on Tuesday that he supported the mandate, but acknowledged that on major bills requiring bipartisan support, like the NDAA, no side gets everything it wants. 

With that in mind, he suggested Democrats were open to sacrificing the vaccine mandate for the simple sake of securing passage of the larger defense package.

“We are willing to compromise because we want to make sure we fund the government, and we want to make sure that we get the national defense bill passed. This is a small part of it,” Hoyer said.

“They needed Republican votes,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee. 

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said she was not involved in the decision to jettison the mandate and did not support it.

“I think it’s kind of a foolish decision, because we say that that’s the only vaccine that soldiers don’t have to have? That seems to me a response to something other than a medical decision,” Shaheen said.

The White House and the Pentagon insist that repealing the mandate is a mistake, and will endanger the health of soldiers.

But administration officials were quick to blame Republicans, even though the legislation was a bipartisan compromise.

“What we think happened here is Republicans in Congress have decided that they’d rather fight against the health and well-being of our troops than protecting them,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday.

“And we believe that it is a mistake, what we saw happen on the NDAA as it relates to the vaccine mandate,“ she added. “Making sure our troops are prepared and ready for service is a priority for President Biden. The vaccination requirement for COVID does just that.”

Mike Lillis contributed.

Source: TEST FEED1

Fizzling voting rights push angers Black lawmakers

The move by House Democratic leaders to fast-track a defense policy bill without tackling voting rights has ruffled some members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who saw the must-pass Pentagon package as their last best chance to address election protections for several years to come.

The critics are grumbling that party leaders simply haven’t been aggressive enough in efforts to force the Senate to adopt the various voting rights bills passed by the House this Congress. Some are also suggesting that leadership has taken their support for granted. 

“It seems like the Black caucus has always supported leadership in what it’s tried to do, but leadership of this caucus hasn’t returned the favor, always,” said Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), a member of both the Black caucus and the liberal “squad.” He added, “And so now we’re in a precarious position where voting rights will continue to be under attack — state to state — will continue to be gutted.”

At issue was the fate of legislation — named after the civil rights icon and late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) — to restore those parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act nullified by the Supreme Court in 2013. House Democrats had passed the bill this Congress, but it was blocked in the Senate, where GOP support is needed to overcome the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold. 

In an effort to break through that resistance, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), the head of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), had pressed Democratic leaders this week to pair the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — an annual, must-pass bill governing Pentagon spending — with the John Lewis bill. And as leverage, members of the CBC had threatened to vote against the rule underlying the NDAA unless the election reforms were somehow attached.

Because House Republicans, as a rule, vote against Democratic rules even if they support the bills themselves, the CBC opposition would have likely stopped the popular, bipartisan defense bill in its tracks.

“OK, you want the NDAA to pass? You need our support on that,” said Bowman, describing the strategy. “We need your support on voting rights in the Senate. Give us your support.’” 

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), another member of the Black caucus, acknowledged the gambit was a long shot, but argued the high stakes justified the effort. The House will revert to Republican control in January, likely putting any voting rights push on ice for at least two years. 

“This is our last opportunity to do something. So the thinking is that we’ll take it as far as we can to try to get it passed,” Johnson said. 

“The fundamental right to vote transcends our yearly NDAA authorization. Both are important, but to Black people on the precipice of possibly being denied the full and fair opportunity to vote by a right-right, extremist, MAGA Supreme Court — I mean, we’re looking at that,” he continued. “That hurts us more than Congress’s inability to pass an NDAA.”

The CBC’s pressure campaign put Democratic leaders in a bind: The House couldn’t pass the NDAA rule without the voting rights provision, but the Senate would reject the NDAA unless the election reforms were gone.

In response, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her leadership team used a procedural gambit, known as the suspension calendar, allowing the NDAA to get a vote on the floor without a rule. Because an overwhelming majority of lawmakers in both parties supported the NDAA, they bet it could win the two-thirds majority required of suspension votes. 

They were right. 

The measure passed easily Thursday afternoon, by a tally of 350 to 80. Most CBC members supported the bill, including Beatty, who took a victory lap for highlighting the voting rights issue as a final act of her tenure at the top of the CBC. 

“Our efforts were never about stopping the NDAA but standing up for voting rights that have been under attack by Republicans,” Beatty said in a statement.

Still, the effort delayed the vote on the NDAA, which was initially scheduled to hit the floor Wednesday night, and irked a number of Democratic lawmakers — leaders and rank-and-file members alike — who were hoping for a smooth vote on a popular defense bill.

“Everybody wants to see if they can change things at the last minute,” a frustrated Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), chair of the Rules Committee, said Wednesday night amid the impasse. 

Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) was even more blunt.  

“My sense is a lot of people are hitting their heads against the wall on this one,” he said. 

Still, many CBC members defended Beatty’s efforts, noting that the very same day she forced the NDAA delay, the Supreme Court was weighing yet another high-profile election case that could grant state legislators broad powers to set voting rules — and have outsized consequences for minority voters. Most trained their criticisms on Senate Republicans for blocking the John Lewis bill and other voter protections. 

“The Senate of this time will be known to have stood in the way of righteous legislation that would assure less voter suppression in our great country,” said Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), another CBC member. “Until we pass it, we have a duty to use all lawful and procedural methodologies available to us to get it done.” 

In the eyes of liberals like Bowman, however, much of the blame falls on Democratic leaders, who have leaned heavily on the CBC to pass major parts of President Biden’s agenda — notably, Beatty helped break the impasse over a massive infrastructure bill last year — while top CBC priorities like voting rights and police reform have languished in the Senate. He’s hoping the group plays hardball in the next Congress. 

“This has been a consistent back-and-forth with leadership throughout this Congress, right? It’s been asking the CBC to get its back,” Bowman said. “So we just, as a caucus, have to flex our muscles a bit and say, ‘Hey, we’re not going to support bill X, Y or Z if we don’t get concessions on things that are most important to our community and to the country.”

Source: TEST FEED1

'The clock ticks': Congress races to resolve high-stakes spending tug-of-war

Lawmakers are digging in their heels in a high-stakes, end-of-the-year spending tug-of-war, with only a week now left before a government shutdown deadline.

While leading negotiators say they’ve been exchanging topline figures for a potential omnibus funding bill that many are still optimistic could pass this month, members say it’s becoming clearer that negotiations will likely need to extend beyond the current Dec. 16 deadline.

Negotiators have speculated leaders will try to bring up a short-term bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), potentially extending funding at fiscal 2022 funding levels through Dec. 23 to keep the government running amid ongoing talks. 

Some Republicans, meanwhile, are openly calling for a CR into year, seeking to punt the action until their party control the House.

But some are shooting for an earlier cutoff date to apply pressure as leaders race to put a bow on fiscal 2023 funding before Christmas.

“When I’m talking about very short-term CR, I never see the value in one week,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said on Thursday. “I always think you should go in three-day increments just to keep the pressure up.”

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), vice-chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters on Thursday that he thinks leaders will decide on a CR that will at least fund the government through sometime in the current session. But whether they will stack the date against the weekend of Christmas Eve or even closer to Dec. 30 remains unclear.

“I think there’s gonna be more of a sense of urgency as the clock ticks,” Shelby said.

Democrats have been unified in pressing for an omnibus before the end of the year, rather than passing a CR through sometime in the next Congress, when they’ll have to tangle with a Republican-controlled lower chamber.

Democratic negotiators also say they’re set to release new funding plans as early as next week that they claim are designed to attract GOP support to get the ball rolling.

“We’ve been busy at work writing a bill designed to get Republican votes,” Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Homeland Security Chair Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told reporters on Wednesday. 

But House Appropriations Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) wouldn’t say much on Thursday as to whether leaders plan to bring the legislation up for a vote next week. 

“We’ll see where we go with that,” she told, though she reiterated that Democrats “crafted the omnibus considering what the Republican priorities are.”

However, negotiators on both sides say the legislation has largely been crafted without GOP input, as they say Republican negotiators have been instructed not to engage in the process in lieu of a larger topline agreement. 

And the plans are already fueling skepticism among Republicans ahead of their expected release.

Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), an appropriator, poured cold water on the effort on Thursday, telling The Hill: “I think anytime that you craft a bill or series of bills that don’t have bipartisan support to begin with, I think it’s a waste of exercise.”

“It’s going nowhere. It might come out of the House, but it’s going nowhere in the Senate,” Shelby told reporters, writing off such bills as “absolutely” a waste of time. 

But Democrats drafting the funding pitch are hopeful Republicans will be receptive to them.

“This is not designed to be some sort of gotcha. We think we’re getting closer and closer and so it shouldn’t be viewed through the lens of this being some sort of setup,” said Schatz, who heads the appropriations subpanel for transportation and housing. 

“This is not going to end up being some wish list of Democratic priorities. This is a balanced proposal,” he argued. 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is among the Republicans calling for a delay until they have House control. Cruz said last week that Congress should pass a CR that runs “until early next year” – a move he said would allow the newly elected Congress to “enact the priorities that the voters elected them to enact.”

A stopgap measure freezing funding levels past Jan. 3 would allow Republicans significantly more influence in shaping government funding, but Democrats say it would also raise the risk of shutdown in a further divided Congress.

But other Republicans haven’t given up on an omnibus, citing concerns for defense and national security. GOP appropriators pushing for an omnibus also say it would allow the next Congress a fresh start to hash out fiscal 2024 appropriations, while pointing to the coming retirements Shelby and Senate Appropriations Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).

Boozman said of the biggest hold-ups negotiators say is preventing an agreement is a roughly $25 billion gap between what Democrats and Republicans say they want for discretionary spending.

“First thing we’ve got to do is agree on the number. So, we’ve agreed on defense,” Boozman said. But when it comes to discretionary spending, he said Democrats are “going to have to come down or I don’t see us getting a deal.”

At the same time, Democrats say they’re preparing for a full-year CR — an option neither side wants — as conservatives turn up the heat on GOP leadership to gun for a short-term one to next Congress. 

“Our preference is an omnibus. That’s what the country needs,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), another appropriator, told The Hill. But if lawmakers fail to strike a larger funding deal before the next Congress begins, Hollen said Democrats would push for a CR “that goes through the remainder of the fiscal year.”

“Rather than something that ends up in January, where House Republicans decide to play games to shut down the government,” he added. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Senate Democrats gear up for battle with corporate America

Democrats lost control of the House but expanded their Senate majority, giving them greater power to issue subpoenas that party senators say they plan to use to investigate price gouging and other inequities in corporate America.  

Democratic committee and subcommittee chairs say they plan to call on corporations to provide more information about how they price prescription drugs, health insurance plans and other goods and services that have soared in cost in recent years.  

They also plan to grill corporate executives over their private discussions about how respond to climate change and over how they use customers’ personal information. 

And they will demand answers on corporate efforts to crack down on misinformation and inappropriate content targeted toward minors across social media platforms.  

“It’s going to mean that our committees will have greater oversight ability, subpoena power,” Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) told reporters this week of expanding the Democratic majority to 51 seats.  

“Subpoena power can deal with corporate corruption and inequities and other problems throughout the country,” he said.   

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is expected to become the next chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, says he plans to launch investigations into several industries, with a special focus on what he says is price gouging in the pharmaceutical drug industry. 

“We are working on our priorities right now but it goes without saying that the committee has broad jurisdiction over health, labor, education and we are and will be prepared to take on very powerful special interests who are ripping off the American people,” he told The Hill.  

Sanders said he’ll have more power to dig up information about corporate pricing practices and argued that Congress has not done enough on the issue.  

“We pay twice as much per capita as other countries for health care, we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. The oil companies are making record-breaking profits, ripping us off. So I think there’s a lot to be looked at in those areas,” he said.  

Fellow leading liberal Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said that she’s “still working on the list” of industries to investigate, adding she has a “wide range.” 

“We now have more tools for oversight,” she said. “We have less room to pass legislation because of the loss of the House, but sharper oversight tools in the Senate.” 

Warren predicted that corporate CEOs will be more willing to comply with Senate Democratic requests for information knowing they may otherwise face a subpoena and a day in court.  

“Even when we ask politely for the CEOs and billionaires to show up, everyone now knows it’s backed up with the possibility of getting a subpoena,” she said.  

The serious consequences of failing to comply with a congressional subpoena were underscored this summer when Trump adviser Stephen Bannon was found guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress for failing to appear for a deposition and refusing to produce documents, despite a subpoena.  

He was sentenced to four months in prison.  

On most Senate committees, the chairs and ranking minority members have standing authority to issue subpoenas but they must use it jointly.  

If a ranking member refuses to go along with a chair’s subpoena request, it requires a majority vote of the committee to issue a demand for testimony or documents. 

Under the current organization of the Senate, where the number of seats on each committee are evenly divided, it has been very difficult for any Democratic chairs to muster enough votes to override a Republican ranking member who balks at a subpoena. 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees, said that members of his party were “straight-jacketed” over the past two years because of the limits posed by the evenly divided Senate.  

“We couldn’t even think seriously about using investigative tools,” he said.  

That will change in January.  

“We’re not just going to issue subpoenas willy-nilly without good cause because we want to maintain the credibility of the power and the process, and there may be challenges in court,” Blumenthal.  

“I would anticipate it will be focused and strategic,” he said.  

Blumenthal, who is in line to become chairman of the Commerce panel’s Consumer Production and Product Safety Subcommittee, said he has conducted hearings on Big Tech companies driving “toxic content” to kids, but didn’t have teeth to back up his queries.  

“There was some cooperation from Big Tech companies but we had no access to documents or even perhaps key witnesses that we might have had through subpoena power,” he said.  

Blumenthal says he wants to look more closely into what he called the “fiasco” of Ticketmaster’s sale of Taylor Swift tour tickets, when fans were locked out of the opportunity to buy tickets, suffered a variety of glitches or had to wait for hours without getting anything. Some floor seats wound up being offered for more than $10,000 and even $20,000 dollars.  

“That merger is under investigation or Ticketmaster is by the Department of Justice but we have a responsibility to oversee the potential misuse of monopolistic power and abuses like holding back tickets and selling to scalpers,” Blumenthal said, referring to the merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation Entertainment, Inc.  

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who is in line to become chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said he’s interested in investigating what energy company companies are saying about climate change behind closed doors and how their private strategy deliberations may diverge radically from their company’s public message about trying to stem global warming.  

“I think the House has already done some good work on the oil and gas industry and has obtained a lot of documents showing the discrepancy between the external voices of the industry and what they say when they’re talking to each other internally. I think we can continue to work on that for sure,” Whitehouse said. 

“They talk green and when they think nobody is listening, the real industry position emerges,” he said.

Source: TEST FEED1

These 10 House Republicans flipped their votes on the same-sex marriage bill

The House has sent the Respect for Marriage Act to President Biden’s desk after all Democrats and 39 Republicans in the body voted to support the bill. 

The legislation, which passed in a 258-169-1 vote, would officially repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and require states to recognize interracial and same-sex marriages lawfully performed in other states. 

The House initially passed the bill in July before the Senate approved it last week along with amendments to add protections for religious exemptions and to clarify that it does not recognize polygamy. The House then needed to approve the bill as amended, which it did on Thursday. 

The bill received some measure of bipartisan support in both houses of Congress, but several Republicans in the lower chamber voted in favor of the bill in July before opposing it on the second vote, while a couple originally opposed it before voting in favor of it. 

Here are the 10 House Republicans who flipped their votes on the same-sex marriage bill:

“Yes” to “no”

Cliff Bentz 

Rep. Cliff Bentz (Ore.) originally voted for the bill in July before switching to a “no” vote on Thursday. He has not publicly explained his reasoning for switching his vote. 

Mario Diaz-Balart 

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.) also switched from voting in favor of the bill to voting against it. He said in a statement on Monday that he planned to oppose the legislation because it lacked “legitimate safeguards” for faith-based organizations that object to the law based on their religious beliefs. 

“The concept of all states respecting other states’ decisions on marriage laws is deeply rooted in American jurisprudence and tradition,” he said. “Similarly, our Founders understood that religious liberties are sacred and vulnerable, and must always be vigorously protected.” 

Brian Mast 

Rep. Brian Mast (Fla.) also took issue with the most recent version of the bill over concerns about protections for religious freedom. He said on the House floor before the vote that changes should be made to the text to protect the “free exercise thereof,” referring to a clause in the First Amendment to the Constitution protecting freedom of religion. 

He also criticized comments from Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.), who said that amending the bill further would “unsettle the Senate’s carefully crafted compromise.” 

Dan Meuser 

Rep. Dan Meuser (Pa.) said in a statement on Twitter that the bill “goes beyond marriage” and weakens religious freedoms “fundamental to our nation,” and that he voted against it Thursday for that reason. He said the Senate’s version of the bill includes language that puts religious freedom in jeopardy and opens organizations up to civil lawsuits, unlike the House’s version. 

“Therefore, I cannot support the Senate Amendment to the Respect for Marriage Act because it jeopardizes the basic religious liberties of every American,” he said. 

Scott Perry 

Rep. Scott Perry (Pa.) indicated that his initial vote in favor of the bill was a mistake based on a lack of time he had to review it. Axios reported that Perry said the bill was rushed to the floor and he had just gotten to the floor as the vote was happening. 

“I knew I had a choice between voting against traditional marriage or voting against interracial marriage,” he said. 

“I just made the wrong choice,” he added. 

Maria Salazar 

Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (Fla.) said in a statement after the vote that she was disappointed the final version of the bill did not include “full protections” for churches and Americans with “sincerely held religious beliefs.” 

She said Senate Republicans were prevented from including “vital protections” for religious Americans in the bill. She said she voted for the first version because she believes in “human dignity” and respect for all, but laws that advance one interest and ignore legal protections for others should not be passed. 

Jeff Van Drew 

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (N.J.) initially voted for the bill but also cited concerns about religious freedom protections. He told Axios that he “absolutely” heard from many constituents who were upset with the bill and he found them persuasive.

“No” to “yes”

Mike Gallagher 

Rep. Mike Gallagher (Wis.) was one of the two Republicans who initially voted against the bill before later backing it. 

He told The Hill in a statement that a religious liberty amendment and a clarification that the bill does not permit polygamy that the Senate added led him to vote in favor of the bill the second time. 

“The Respect for Marriage Act fixes the polygamy loophole in Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi’s hastily written version and creates strong religious liberty protections for religious organizations, including schools, churches, and adoption agencies,” he said. 

Jaime Herrera Beutler 

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (Wash.) also flipped from opposing the bill in July to supporting it Thursday, but has not publicly shared her reasoning. She will be leaving Congress at the end of the term next month.

“Yes” to “present”

Burgess Owens 

Rep. Burgess Owens (Utah) initially voted in favor of the bill but was the only House member to vote “present” on Thursday. 

“While today is undoubtedly a giant step toward religious liberty, my lone ‘present’ vote signals a warning beacon that the war is far from won,” he tweeted. 

He said religious freedom cannot prevail unless individuals and small business owners have explicit protection under the law. He added that protecting churches and religious organizations is only “scratching the surface” of the scope of First Amendment rights.

Source: TEST FEED1