November Washington D.C. Preview

As newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson begins his tenure, POLITICO Pro policy teams explore how his speakership will affect various policy areas.

 

 

QUICK FIX

 

 

— Johnson will have to navigate a number of health-related policy initiatives related to abortion, opioids and health care.   — The decision to pair $14 billion in aid to Israel with a similar amount in cuts to IRS funding, one of Johnson’s first policy moves as speaker, could underscore how House Republicans navigate tax policy.   — Having previously reported on trade issues in China, Johnson is expected to support ongoing work to crack down on China’s trade practices and industrial policies.

 

 

AGRICULTURE Johnson's complicated relationship with the farm bill: Johnson has laid out a plan to pass the House’s version of the farm bill by the end of the year. But some GOP farm bill backers on Capitol Hill are concerned that his past skepticism of spending in the measure, particularly money for the country’s leading anti-hunger program, could jeopardize final passage of the major legislative package.   — Complicating matters even more is that his timeline for passing the farm bill in the House appears to rely on lawmakers quickly advancing unfinished appropriations measures, including the stalled agriculture funding bill. Johnson’s proposal would require that Congress pass an extension of the current farm bill legislation to avoid a catastrophic year-end cliff for agriculture programs that would hit rural America the hardest. The current farm bill, which Congress passed in 2018, began to expire on Sept. 30. As POLITICO has reported, dozens of farm-district House Republicans are pressing Johnson to include an extension of the current farm bill in the upcoming federal stop-gap funding measure ahead of a possible Nov. 18 shutdown. — Meredith Lee Hill

 

 

TRADE Continuity from Johnson on trade, China: Johnson is expected to support ongoing work in the House to crack down on China’s trade practices and industrial policies. In 2020, as head of the conservative Republican Study Committee, Johnson co-wrote a national security report with a section on China trade issues. That document advocated tougher sanctions on companies and individuals affiliated with the Chinese military plus the pursuit of bilateral trade deals with like-minded nations.   — In particular, he has called for a U.S.-U.K. trade deal and advocated expanding trade with Indo-Pacific nations such as Taiwan, Indonesia and Mongolia in an effort to counter China in a “Conservative Playbook.” And he supported the U.S.-Mexico-Canada deal, the rewrite of NAFTA signed by former President Donald Trump that received broad bipartisan support.   — Those policies, released when Trump was still in office, largely fall in line with the former president’s trade agenda. But the new speaker broke with Trump on the issue of tariffs, saying he preferred to use sanctions to penalize China for the theft of intellectual property instead of the broad tariffs imposed. — Gavin Bade

 

 

EDUCATION Where Johnson stands on education policy issues: The new House speaker has been at the forefront of culture wars that have roiled schools and animated conservatives in recent years. Last year, the House speaker introduced legislation to cut off federal funds to schools or other entities that promote “sexually-oriented material” for young children. Opponents decried it as a federal “Don’t Say Gay” law in the image of Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ legislation that restricted school teachings on race-related and sexual orientation issues.   — Johnson has also pressed Republicans’ case against the Biden administration over a 2021 Justice Department memo that pushed to investigate threats against school boards, an effort that conservatives viewed as an attempt to stifle parents protesting school Covid-19 policies. He’s posted on social media multiple times against teachers unions, blaming school closures for learning losses during the pandemic.   — Before coming to Congress, Johnson was steeped in conservative legal fights involving schools and colleges. In 2018, he joined with then-Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican, to send guidelines to each state superintendent that spelled out students’ right to pray. He previously represented a Louisiana university in its legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that employers provide birth control coverage for employees. — Michael Stratford

 

 

DEFENSE An emphasis on the NDAA: Johnson, a former rank-and-file member of the Armed Service Committee, has committed to passing a final defense policy bill by December as part of his aggressive schedule to bring the House back to regular order.   Johnson represents a military-heavy western Louisiana congressional district that's home to Barksdale Air Force Base and the Army's Fort Johnson.   Armed Services Committee leaders in both parties have expressed optimism that Johnson, who has taken part in the process to pass the National Defense Authorization Act, will allow them to finish their negotiations with the Senate unfettered.   — But the deeply conservative Johnson has also been a vocal opponent of the Pentagon’s abortion travel policy, its now-defunct vaccine mandate for troops and a host of other personnel issues. He’ll need to persuade GOP lawmakers that a compromise defense bill that likely excludes many hard-right priorities is the best the narrow GOP majority can do. — Connor O’Brien

 

 

EMPLOYMENT AND IMMIGRATION All quiet on the labor front: Johnson is no fan of labor unions, though it is hard to distinguish him from ex-Speaker McCarthy or the consensus of the Republican caucus on that front.   Johnson has voted against the policy positions favored by unions about 90 percent of the time, according to a tracker maintained by the AFL-CIO. McCarthy’s score was about 88 percent against by that same metric.   Johnson has particularly clashed with teachers unions, such as on pandemic-era school closures, and there’s little reason to believe he will depart from GOP orthodoxy when it comes to pushing employer-friendly, anti-union positions in the House.   To that end, he will likely rely on House Education and the Workforce Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who is stridently opposed to organized labor and has years of experience atop the committee.   — House Republicans have pushed deep budget cuts to the Labor Department and agencies like the National Labor Relations Board, but those moves are anathema to the Senate. It is not yet clear whether Johnson will maintain that stance, though he has already sided with the fiscal conservative wing on other matters.   — On immigration policy, Johnson has hewed the conservative line of addressing border security through tightening immigration laws and imposing stricter standards on things like asylum claims — drawing praise from immigration restrictionist groups. — Nick Niedzwiadek

 

 

HEALTH CARE Health care policy under Johnson: Johnson’s effect on health policy will become apparent in the coming weeks on several key issues, including abortion, opioids and how the government pays for health care. — On abortion: Most House Republicans back a provision in the food and agriculture funding bill that would ban mail delivery of abortion pills nationwide, with some hard-liners pledging to oppose any version without it. But a handful of Republican centrists who face tough reelections next year say federal curbs on mifepristone, a widely used abortion pill, are “a nonstarter.”   The impasse threatens to derail Johnson’s pledge to pass all 12 government spending bills while avoiding a shutdown. Government funding is set to run out in mid-November.   “If mifepristone stays in the bill, it’s dead. If mifepristone comes out, it’s dead,” Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) told POLITICO shortly after Johnson was elected speaker. “So, until we solve that problem, we can’t get to the next one.” — How Johnson proceeds over the next few weeks will provide one of the first looks at how he plans to navigate the pitfalls that ensnared his predecessor, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), and whether he plans to make good on his promises to protect the at-risk Republicans who helped the GOP clinch its narrow House majority.   — On opioids: The SUPPORT Act expired on Sept. 30, but Johnson’s elevation and an end to the speaker drama give some advocates hope that new legislation could come to the floor before year’s end. The House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously approved a measure in July that would re-up the prior version’s funding authorization for prevention, treatment and recovery programs. It would also repeal a 1965 rule prohibiting Medicaid-funded addiction treatment in large mental health institutions, which Congress adopted at the time for fear the states would foist more costs on the federal government.   The bill from the panel’s Health Subcommittee chair, Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), would also prohibit states from disenrolling people from Medicaid when they’re incarcerated. The legislation would allow their coverage to automatically resume upon release so they’d have health care access at a time when they’re most vulnerable to dying from an overdose.   Additionally, the bill would permit pregnant people in pretrial detention to retain their Medicaid coverage.   The House Judiciary Committee, which has partial jurisdiction over the bill, advanced the legislation at the end of September. The panel included a measure that would make the horse sedative xylazine — which drug traffickers are adding to illicit fentanyl to deadly effect — a Schedule III controlled substance, for three years, subject to additional regulation.   — And in the Senate? Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the ranking Republican on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has proposed a bill, but no Democrat has. Pro Health Care Staff

 

 

TAX Tabula rasa on tax: Johnson might not be a complete blank slate when it comes to tax policy. But it’s pretty close.   Even so, one of Johnson’s first policy moves involved taxes — deciding to pair $14 billion in emergency assistance to Israel with a similar amount of cuts in IRS funding.   — If anything, that might underscore that Republicans are largely on the same page on how to proceed on tax policy in the coming years despite the numerous other divisions that have hamstrung the House GOP conference.   Johnson himself appears to agree with the many GOP lawmakers who want to chip away at the $80 billion in funding that Democrats gave to the IRS in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act and to extend the provisions in their 2017 tax law set to expire at the end of 2025.   — That doesn’t mean there’s no internal dissension about taxes: Blue-state Republicans continue to push to lift the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions put into place by the 2017 tax law, though the vast majority of their colleagues favor keeping the cap where it is.   Johnson huddled with those blue-state lawmakers before he was elected speaker, but it’s unclear what impact that could have on future tax negotiations that might involve raising those limits.   Beyond that, tax lobbyists and others in the D.C. tax world acknowledge they don’t have much of a history with Johnson, though the speaker’s choice for policy director — Dan Ziegler, former executive director of the Republican Study Committee — seems to be well regarded.   — More immediately, Johnson’s election to speaker raised new questions about Congress’ ability to assemble a year-end tax bill.   Congress fell short in 2022 in attempts to reach an agreement to potentially expand the Child Tax Credit and reverse three business tax increases also in that 2017 tax law, which might spur increased interest in some pockets in clinching that sort of deal by the end of this year.   Johnson hasn’t said anything publicly about a tax bill this year, and the upheaval in his conference and the current intense focus on appropriations have left many observers of the legislative scene skeptical that one can be agreed to before the end of December.   Still, House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) has said he wants to discuss a potential deal with Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).   — Johnson has said he wants to defer more to committee chairs when it comes to policy matters. But even if he didn’t, his inexperience on tax issues could allow Smith greater influence on how the House proceeds on that and other areas under the Ways and Means jurisdiction. — Bernie Becker

 

 

CYBERSECURITY — Johnson has it out for CISA: Johnson, a staunch ally of Trump, has made restricting government election security efforts a priority — a move that could weaken oversight of the 2024 vote and wider cybersecurity protections.   Johnson is a vocal critic of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, which he and a growing number of Republicans believe pressured social media platforms to censor conservative voices during the 2020 election — something the agency vehemently denies. He has also made false claims about the 2020 election being stolen and led the amicus brief signed by more than 100 House Republicans to overturn the election results in swing states.   — CISA struggles: Johnson is likely to continue pursuing stricter oversight of CISA, which could have a significant impact on its ability to protect against cyber threats and ensure the security of future elections. His attacks could also sow distrust and make it more difficult for the agency to work with state and local election officials to protect their voting systems.   — Reduced funding: The new speaker joined more than 100 Republican colleagues in voting in September to slash CISA's $3 billion budget by 25 percent.   Johnson has not weighed in much on cybersecurity protections more broadly, with one exception: He introduced a cyber workforce readiness amendment in 2017. — Joseph Gedeon

 

 

FINANCIAL SERVICES Big squeeze: How Johnson handles negotiations over the looming government shutdown will be especially critical for financial regulators and their significant year-end plans.   The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are expected to roll out a series of sweeping new rules in the coming months related to corporate climate-risk disclosures, derivatives exchanges’ conflicts of interest and trading in the Treasury market, among other areas.   — Yet, if Johnson cannot strike a deal with Senate Democrats and the White House to fund the government beyond Nov. 17, both agencies — as well as a broad swath of the government — will effectively shut down. That uncertainty is already hitting the SEC: Just before the near shutdown in October, the agency instituted a hiring pause that remains in place over the lack of clarity about its fiscal 2024 budget.   Financial regulators’ budgets are a small part of the deliberations over funding the government, but Republican and Democratic appropriators are in two starkly different camps on funding them. GOP lawmakers have floated using appropriations to kill several rules in the works at the agency. And their proposed budget for the SEC is nearly a half-billion dollars lower than the requested $2.44 billion.   — Meanwhile, a key member of the House committee that oversees the SEC and the CFTC is confident the panel will be allowed to continue its aggressive supervision.   “Mike is not a financial services guy per se, but I think he will defer to Patrick and the members of the committee to be able to do our work," said Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.) of the House Financial Services Committee and its chair, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.). — Declan Harty and Eleanor Mueller

 

 

TECHNOLOGY A ‘no’ on Big Tech's funding goals: Johnson’s sudden catapult to speaker left tech wonks across Washington scrambling to read up on how he views the industry’s priorities. He was among 24 House Republicans who voted against last year’s sweeping Chips and Science Act, which set aside nearly $53 billion in subsidies in a bid to restore America as a global leader in chip manufacturing and research. Johnson also joined many of his Republican colleagues in voting against the 2021 infrastructure law, which doled out $65 billion for broadband expansion.   — Johnson largely favors reining in agency powers, signing onto an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to stop deferring to regulators on how to interpret their jurisdiction. Johnson also wants Congress to codify the Trump administration’s repeal of net neutrality, which the Federal Communications Commission is attempting to revive.   — Johnson is on the House’s Judiciary Committee, which oversees federal antitrust enforcement from the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department and is a key gatekeeper for updates to antitrust laws. While Johnson has said little about his thoughts on competition policy, he did vote against bills in 2021 that would have boosted antitrust enforcement in the tech sector, including a proposal to ban Google, Apple, Meta and Amazon from favoring their own products over competitors’.   He also expressed skepticism over the direction of the FTC under Chair Lina Khan at a hearing in June. And prior to Khan starting at the agency, he co-sponsored legislation that would consolidate federal antitrust enforcement under the purview of the Justice Department. — John Hendel, Josh Sisco and Brendan Bordelon

 

 

ENERGY Climate throwback: Without an energy or climate record to go on, industry groups and environmentalists alike are viewing Johnson largely through the lens of his predecessors as Republican leader: a champion of fossil fuels and a skeptic of climate change.   “Don’t know him too well, but glad they are hopefully getting someone into the job,” said one long-time oil and gas industry official before Johnson won the final vote to assume the speakership.   — Johnson hails from a wing of the Republican party that has denied the reality that human activity has contributed to climate change. In a 2017 op-ed in the Shreveport Times, Johnson railed against the United States joining the Paris climate accord. “Few Americans deny that the earth’s climate is changing. Indeed, evidence shows that cycles of climate change have always been a part of the earth’s history,” Johnson wrote, using a common misconception among people who dispute the vast scientific evidence that human activity is the main driver of climate change. — Pro Energy Staff