Category: US

The possible deal comes after several hours of negotiations with McCarthy’s detractors and less than a day after the GOP leader made an offer that conceded to basically all of their demands — including making it easier to boot a speaker.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), one of McCarthy’s opponents, said that there was a deal “on paper,” but cautioned that it was a first step.

“It’s changes that we wanted. Now we’ve got a lot more that we want to get to. This is round one. It’s on paper. Which is a good thing,” Norman said.

Other McCarthy opponents acknowledged significant progress, but were cagey about whether they had reached a final proposal for both sides to sign off on.

“A lot of good work has been done today. There’s still a lot of work to be done,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas).

Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.), asked if there was a deal, replied cryptically: “Very exciting.”

The sign of hope for McCarthy follows a third day of high-profile failed votes on the House floor.

There were few visible shifts over those many hours, as his opponents continued to break against him: While most started the day rallied behind Rep. Byron Donalds, by Thursday evening several had broken off to support Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), a name POLITICO previously reported as rippling amongst McCarthy’s defectors. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) also nominated former President Donald Trump.

But McCarthy spent Thursday’s votes huddling with some of his detractors. He was spotted chatting with Rep.-elect Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) and Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), two members who are so far opposing his bid. Clyde, asked afterward about the conversation, told a reporter that it was “none of your business.”

Meanwhile, GOP Whip Tom Emmer convened meetings in his office during the votes, including with Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.), one of the no votes.

“This is the most hopeful set of conversations we’ve had in weeks,” McCarthy ally Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) said, adding that the offer by leadership allies amounts to “clarifying what our intent is — and that enables trust, where some have had trust issues.”

Republicans are weighing trying to adjourn through Friday or the weekend as they face likely absences from their own members. And leadership is hoping that their nascent deal with conservatives will help corral support for taking that break.

The GOP is already missing one member: Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) missed the ninth ballot after traveling back to his home state for a “planned non-emergency medical procedure,” a spokesperson told POLITICO. Buck’s office said the lawmaker would be out the rest of Thursday and most of Friday.

The tentative breakthrough comes as McCarthy’s allies have spent most of Thursday trying to figure out if the glimmers of hope over the potential deal are just a mirage. In a slim majority, he can’t afford to alienate the other side of his conference, where centrists and institutionalists already have heartburn over the proffered deal.

“I want to see what those concessions are, line by line. And maybe name by name,” said Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.)

“Frustrated? That’s mild,” he added.

And tensions remain sky-high among House Republicans on Thursday. During one meeting between McCarthy and Main Street Republicans, Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) told members that if anyone was wavering, they should “get out,” according to a member in the room who spoke candidly on condition of anonymity.

Johnson’s move was meant to ensure those who stayed were unified in backing McCarthy. No one left the room.

The offer McCarthy made to conservatives on Wednesday night includes items many in his conferences once viewed as red lines.

It would, according to two Republicans familiar with the proposal, include a vote on term limits for members, more seats for Freedom Caucus members on the powerful House Rules Committee, and allowing a single member to force a vote on ousting the speaker. That last item is a particularly steep climbdown for McCarthy — essentially guaranteeing that if he does land the gavel, it’s never fully safe.

Additionally, the conservative Club for Growth agreed Thursday to back McCarthy’s speaker bid pending the deal. That came after the McCarthy-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund reached a deal with the Club, which had initially signaled opposition to McCarthy, to stay out of open House primaries for safe Republican seats.

McCarthy’s camp is hoping that if they can winnow down his opposition from 20 to a half-dozen or so, the pressure on the remaining holdouts will be so great that enough would cave. McCarthy has also floated that if he can flip enough “no” votes into his column, he could convince others to vote “present,” helping him by lowering the number of total votes he needs to win.

But Republicans are also worried that a hardline group of their colleagues are essentially unwinnable. At the start of the day, a leadership aide said there are likely still five “hard nos” against McCarthy: Gaetz (Fla.), Boebert (Colo.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Bob Good (Va.) and Matt Rosendale (Mont.). McCarthy can only lose four GOP votes and still win the speakership, assuming full attendance.

“We need to get to a point where we evaluate what life after Kevin McCarthy looks like,” Boebert said as she nominated Hern on Thursday.

McCarthy allies are also worried about incoming Rep. Eli Crane (Ariz.). In a warning sign, Crane said on Thursday night that he was “not looking for a deal” and “leadership knows where I’m at.”

McCarthy’s camp also expects that he may eventually have to endorse conservatives for committee gavels, such as Rep. Andy Harris (Md.), who’s pushing to lead the Health and Human Services subcommittee on Appropriations, or Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), who’s gunning to lead the Homeland Security Committee. (Those decisions are subject to the approval of the GOP steering committee, though McCarthy’s influence is significant.)

If the negotiating gets that far, it’s bound to upset centrists and even some mainstream conservatives, who are likely to argue that McCarthy is rewarding bad behavior.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), for example, also wants the Homeland Security gavel.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), for one, called dropping the motion to vacate down to one member a “terrible decision,” but left the door open if it got McCarthy the speaker’s gavel.

“I don’t like it. I don’t want to vote for it. But I’m willing to discuss it,” said Bacon, while warning that setting it at one member could result in the step being taken “every week.”

Nicholas Wu, Katherine Tully-McManus, Meredith Lee Hill and Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.

And that’s a harsh reality for the upper chamber’s Democrats. They can unilaterally approve President Joe Biden’s lifetime judicial nominees — confirming them even more quickly than last term, thanks to a clear 51-seat majority.

But they won’t be satisfied with simply turning the Senate floor into a nomination factory after Biden’s unexpectedly productive first two years in office. It’s just not in their DNA.

“I want to see some action,” said Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a member of Democratic leadership who chairs the Senate Rules Committee.

Holding only 50 Senate seats and a narrow House majority over Biden’s first two years in office, Democrats pushed through two sweeping party-line laws on Covid aid as well as taxes, health care and energy. That’s on top of bipartisan law spending billions on infrastructure, safeguarding same-sex marriage, tightening gun safety standards and boosting microchip manufacturing.

An agenda even approaching that size seems unattainable in the coming months as House Republicans flail their way through a stalemated speaker battle. Yet Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is still hopeful, regardless of who ends up leading the House, that lawmakers can “keep the streak going moving forward.”

Rather than sweeping changes to election law, D.C. statehood or the gargantuan plan known as “Build Back Better,” Democrats are discussing modest but still challenging issues to tackle this Congress. Klobuchar mentioned childcare, housing, Big Tech and antitrust as possibilities as well as “some type of immigration” bill.

“I know it seems impossible in the House, but it’s really necessary,” she said.

Schumer is still keen on marijuana banking legislation, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is eager to bring down drug prices and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) believes there’s room for bipartisan agreement on housing and crypto regulation.

All of those would have to clear the 60-vote hurdle of the Senate’s legislative filibuster before House Republicans would even think of considering them. And some Democrats argue that the only way to motivate the House to think in a more bipartisan fashion is to lead the way.

“It’s going to take a different strategy. We’ll work together here, and set an example,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.).

The last time Democrats found themselves in the situation they’re confronting now — holding the presidency and Senate majority with a GOP House — was in 2012 after President Barack Obama’s reelection. That Senate took significant and risky steps toward bipartisanship, not all of them successful: An attempt at new gun background checks fell short, while a bipartisan Gang of Eight senators, including Schumer, helped pass a sweeping immigration reform bill.

But the House refused to touch immigration. Eventually, the government shut down as House Republicans and Senate conservatives tried to defund Obamacare. Then, Democrats lost the Senate in the brutal 2014 election.

With that lesson learned, Democrats are not aiming as high this time around. And even if Kevin McCarthy eventually manages to seize the speakership in the coming days, it’s hard to imagine a rush of bipartisanship in the first half of this year.

Centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said things will look more sunny “if Kevin holds his ground and … tries to work with some of the people who are more moderate. And don’t cater to people that hold you hostage. In America we always say we don’t pay for hostages.”

“I’ve talked to Kevin before — I’d like to think that” he’ll work with us, Manchin said. “We’ll just see how he comes out of this.”

There’s also the question of whether Senate Republicans will even allow things to get that far. With just 51 seats, Democrats will need at least nine GOP votes in the Senate to pass anything. That means Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) who collaborated with Democrats to a surprising degree that past two years, maintains effective veto power over any legislation moving through the chamber.

Democratic leaders will have to calibrate their ambitions to what is doable, and possibly once again allow bipartisan gangs to cut deals. Different factions of Republicans have shown interest in taking on Big Tech, marijuana banking and lowering drug prices, particularly insulin.

And GOP leaders said Biden may have to get involved.

“I don’t think anybody for two years will want to just do judges. I think you want to see if there are some legislative accomplishments we can put up,” said Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.). “But clearly you’re going to have strong differences of opinion in divided government. So that’s going to require some presidential leadership.”

Then there are the must-pass spending bills, the debt ceiling and an expiring farm bill to confront. In particular, Republicans want to avoid another big end-of-year government funding deal crafted behind closed doors, after December’s $1.7 trillion bipartisan bill.

That will require both House Republicans and Senate Democrats to actually prioritize putting appropriations bills on the floor.

“That’s where Republicans in the House will make a difference once they get leadership established,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa).

Of course, that assumes the fractious House can cobble together 218 votes even for spending bills after this week’s ugly speaker clashes. But a handful of optimistic Democratic senators see the House’s current struggle as a potentially cathartic one.

Brown said he hoped this week’s disarray “will free up enough Republicans to realize that if they want to get anything done, they have to work across party lines with us.”

“I don’t know that House Republicans want to go back and say: ‘Oh yeah, we did a lot of investigations,’” he added.

The FTC is also looking to prohibit other types of employment provisions under the rule that have the same effect as a non-compete. That could include requirements to repay training expenses if a worker leaves a company within a certain time period.

The FTC’s proposal would extend to nearly all work arrangements, including unpaid or volunteer positions, apprentices and independent contractors, in addition to regular employees.

The proposal fulfills a key pillar of President Joe Biden’s competition policy agenda from last year. In a sprawling executive order from July 2021 the White House directed the entirety of the federal government to prioritize work involving competition policy and enforcement, particularly in labor markets. That specifically included a rulemaking effort by the FTC on non-compete clauses.

“For decades, I’ve fought for the notion that if your employer wants to keep you, they need to make it worth your while with good pay and benefits,” Biden said in a tweet. “Consistent with my Executive Order, today’s FTC announcement to limit non-compete agreements is a huge win for workers.”

Non-competes are a “widespread and often exploitative practice that suppresses wages, hampers innovation, and blocks entrepreneurs from starting new businesses,” the agency said in a statement.

The FTC estimates that banning the practice could put close to $300 billion back in the pockets of workers each year, as well as boost the career opportunities for about 30 million Americans.

“It is an individual problem for a worker, but it is an aggregate problem for the economy,” FTC Chair Lina Khan told reporters on Wednesday’s call.

In written statements, Khan and Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, highlighted not only the effect of non-competes on wages but also on innovation and new business formation.

“This in turn reduces product quality while raising prices,” Khan wrote, saying that in the health care sector alone, banning non-competes could lower consumer prices by as much as $150 billion each year.

The FTC commissioners voted 3-1 along partisan lines to issue the proposal, with the agency’s lone Republican commissioner Christine Wilson voting no.

In a written statement, Wilson said her fellow commissioners are departing “from hundreds of years of legal precedent that employs a fact-specific inquiry into whether a non-compete clause is unreasonable,” and instead is proposing a near-blanket ban on the practice. Wilson also questioned whether the agency has the constitutional authority to issue the rules, and said a recent U.S. Supreme Court opinion limiting the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority dooms the FTC’s efforts on non-competes.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also criticized the proposal, saying the agency lacks authority to issue the rule and that it ignores the benefits of the practice.

“Attempting to ban noncompete clauses in all employment circumstances overturns well-established state laws which have long governed their use and ignores the fact that, when appropriately used, noncompete agreements are an important tool in fostering innovation and preserving competition,” Sean Heather, U.S. Chamber of Commerce senior vice president for international regulatory affairs and antitrust, said in a statement.

According to the other three commissioners, in many cases, employers leverage their outsized bargaining power to compel workers into signing these contracts, such as by making them a condition for receiving severance pay or part of an employment agreement.

“For too long, coercive noncompete agreements have unfairly denied millions of working people the freedom to change jobs, negotiate for better pay, and start new businesses,” Sarah Miller, who heads up the antimonopoly group American Economic Liberties Project, said in a statement.

Khan said that one reason for the rulemaking was the increased utilization of non-compete agreements across a broader segment of the American workforce in recent decades.

“These are no longer just being used in the boardroom, but are now basically proliferated across the economy,” she said.

The FTC estimates that roughly one-in-five workers are subject to non-competes, Khan said.

In a tweet, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who chair’s the Senate Finance Committee, said “non-compete clauses are anti-worker and anti-American, plain and simple. I’m glad the [FTC] is moving to end this practice and level the playing field for American workers.”

As a precursor, the FTC on Wednesday announced enforcement actions against two glass companies and a pair of related security firms over their use of non-competes.

States including California, North Dakota and Oklahoma, as well as the District of Columbia have already outlawed the use of non-compete agreements, and other states restrict their use among certain groups of workers.

The process to write and implement a rule can be lengthy, and includes public comments and potential legal challenges. A final rule will likely not be in place until at least 2024. The FTC will open the proposal for two months of public comments and the rule will take effect six months after a final version is published.

The FTC frequently uses its rulemaking authority to enforce its consumer protection mandate, including recently proposed regulations governing privacy and data security practices. The last time the agency issued a competition rule, however, was in 1967, governing “discriminatory Practices in Men’s and Boys’ Tailored Clothing Industry.” The rule was never enforced, and rescinded in 1994.