Morning Report — Congress is back and so is dysfunction

Hurry up and wait. House and Senate members returned to the Capitol this week and are once again embroiled in discord, dysfunction and delays.

House Republicans postponed from today until next week a planned handoff of impeachment articles to the Senate against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Facing a Senate trial, conservatives want additional time to get GOP senators in place to pressure Democrats who would need to vote to table or dismiss charges against the secretary to avoid a lengthy impeachment trial (The Hill).

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has kept his cards close to the vest about how he plans to dispose of the impeachment articles next week. Mayorkas, accused by House Republicans of failing to follow immigration law at the U.S. southern border, is expected to remain in his Cabinet post when the months-long drama concludes.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who is retiring at the end of his term and voted to impeach former President Trump, says the secretary did not commit high crimes or misdemeanors, but instead administered the president’s “wrong policy” at the border. Senate Democrats who are vulnerable against challengers in November feel the pressure ahead of next week’s handling of impeachment.

Schumer and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) encountered yet another hurdle ahead of an April 19 deadline to reauthorize and amend the expiring Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: Trump used social media to lobby House and Senate Republicans to “kill” the law, which would extend for another five years controversial warrantless surveillance powers. “IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS. THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!!” the former president wrote on Truth Social.

Meanwhile, Johnson is tiptoeing around firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who says she might oust him because she opposed deals he reached with Democratic leaders last month to keep the government funded through September.

Greene says she’s poised at any moment to call for a vote to purge Johnson as Speaker if he reaches across the aisle for votes he would need to pass Ukraine aid. And what about Israel, or Democrat-led Baltimore, which seeks federal funding to rebuild its collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge? The known unknowns have delayed the House agenda.

Axios: House Republicans chose Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) Tuesday to chair the influential Appropriations Committee.

Emergency aid: House Democrats accuse Republicans of trying to thwart emergency assistance to Ukraine by adding a provision for liquified natural gas exports the GOP knows the minority opposes. The Speaker floated the idea last month. “I think it’s a non-starter,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said (The Hill).

Hidden figures: Officials in the Trump administration appear to have barred environmental regulators and experts from warning the Senate about a loophole dealing with “forever chemicals,” which unknown to lawmakers made it into law and benefited some companies, according to internal communications obtained by The Hill.

LEADING THE DAY

COURTS

ABORTION WILL BE ALMOST ENTIRELY ILLEGAL in Arizona after the state Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld an 1864 law, adopted before women could vote, that makes performing an abortion a felony. The surprise ruling pushed Republicans, including Trump, into a new political dilemma with the “states’ rights” abortion position he staked out Monday.

In a 4-2 decision, the court rejected arguments that it should uphold the 15-week abortion ban passed by then-Gov. Doug Ducey (R) in 2022 and enforced after the end of Roe v. Wade. Voters can remove the restrictions through a ballot measure in November, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) said Tuesday (The Hill and The Hill).

The ruling doused abortion politics in gasoline and threatens to upend 2024 contests for the White House and Senate in swing-state Arizona, The Hill’s Al Weaver reports.

The news sent shock waves throughout Washington. Biden, who believes abortion will mobilize voters across party lines in Democrats’ favor, said Arizona abortion restrictions without exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother are “a result of the extreme agenda of Republican elected officials who are committed to ripping away women’s freedom.”

THE DECISION will not be the final word. Groups planning November’s ballot measure say they’ve exceeded 500,000 signatures, 120,000 more than the requisite number needed. Arizona’s court decision is expected to further boost that total, with the deadline to hand in those signatures set for early July.

“It’s not good for Republicans at the ballot box, period,” one Arizona-based GOP operative told The Hill, adding that it’s “impossible” for the party to defend the 1864 law, especially in swing districts in the battleground state.

Trump’s decision Monday to steer clear of a 15-week ban on abortion and instead applaud state-centered control of the issue was widely seen as a move by a GOP candidate with his focus on the middle of the electorate, The Hill’s Amie Parnes reports. But while Democrats are increasingly nervous that Trump will woo centrist voters away from Biden, Arizona’s ruling delivered a massive political gift to Democrats, who could not have asked for better timing to highlight the consequences of Trump’s abortion position. 

ZOOM IN

© The Associated Press / Manuel Balce Ceneta | Former President Trump at a campaign rally in February.

POLITICS

CATCH-UP CAMPAIGNING: Biden has been scooping up record-making donations and plowing the money into a growing campaign operation in battleground states that appears to surpass what Trump has built this cycle.

The president’s coffers were flush with $71 million cash at the end of February — more than twice that of Trump’s campaign — and that fundraising advantage turned into a hiring spree that now boasts 300 paid staffers across nine states and 100 offices across the country. Meanwhile, Trump’s advisers would not disclose staffing levels, but his ground game still seems to be at a beginning stage. His campaign hired state directors in Pennsylvania and Michigan last week. Combined, the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee have fewer than five staff members in each of the battleground states, NBC News reports.

“This is like comparing a Maserati to a Honda — 2020 had staff and the bodies in place to turn out the vote,” one source said. “This current iteration is starting from ground zero, and we’re seven months out from the election. It makes no sense and puts them at a huge disadvantage to Biden, who is staffing up in droves.”

BIDEN IS DELIVERING incremental student debt relief as he courts young voters amid signs that the critical voting bloc could turn away from his party or simply sit out in November. A new NPR/New Hour/Marist Poll released Sunday found Trump up 2 points over Biden among millennial and Generation Z Americans — an age group frustrated with economic strains and stressed about student debt. 

Leaning in on his 2020 pledge to lower or erase student debt could help boost Biden’s standing among young voters — “where he could use some shoring up of his support,” said Morley Winograd, a former senior policy adviser to Al Gore and the author of multiple books about millennials. On Monday, the president unveiled a new initiative to ease debt for millions of borrowers as he tries to make good on his 2020 campaign promises and court young voters who may be gravitating away from the party (The Hill).

ELSEWHERE

© The Associated Press / Susan Walsh | Vice President Harris met Tuesday with relatives of American hostages who seek their release from Gaza.

INTERNATIONAL

THE WAR IN GAZA is never far from the White House, as evidenced Tuesday by a meeting Vice President Harris held with relatives of Americans held in the enclave since the Hamas attack on Israel Oct. 7, seeking to update them on the status of hostage release talks (The Hill).

More than six months into the war, Hamas said it was “studying” a new proposal for a temporary truce submitted during talks with U.S., Qatari and Egyptian mediators. Under the plan, fighting would stop for six weeks, 40 women and child hostages would be exchanged for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and up to 500 aid trucks would enter Gaza per day (The Times of Israel).

Active fighting in Gaza has ebbed to its lowest point since November. Israel withdrew troops from the southern tip over the weekend, allowing some people to return to survey their homes in the southern city of Khan Younis, only to find much of it annihilated (The New York Times).

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday said he expects talks between Israeli and U.S. officials to take place next week on a potential Israeli military operation in Rafah, Gaza’s last refuge for displaced Palestinians. Washington has repeatedly warned Israel against an invasion, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday victory over Hamas required entry into Rafah (Reuters).

Biden on Tuesday called Netanyahu’s approach to the war in Gaza a “mistake,” piling on his criticism of the Israeli leader one week after the White House threatened to alter its support (The Hill).

“I think what he’s doing is a mistake,” Biden told Univision in an interview. “I don’t agree with his approach… So what I’m calling for is for the Israelis to just call for a cease-fire, allow for the next six, eight weeks, total access to all food and medicine going into the country. There’s no excuse to not provide for the medical and the food needs of those people. It should be done now.”

Iran’s supreme leader has warned that Israel “must be punished and it will be,” for a deadly bombing of its consulate in Syria. The airstrike, which Iran blamed on Israel, destroyed the consulate and killed seven Iranian officials, as well as at least six Syrians. Iran has vowed retaliation — an escalation of regional tensions over the war in Gaza that appeared to raise the risk of a wider Middle Eastern conflict (CNN).

In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky says heinvited Trump to visit his country to gauge the former president’s ideas about ending the war with Russia. Trump has expressed interest but made no commitment, Zelensky said in an interview, adding his skepticism that making territorial concessions to Moscow, as suggested, would end the fighting.

Taiwanese groups on Monday outlined a major disinformation campaign employed by Chinese actors during the island nation’s national elections, which concluded in January and delivered a blow to Beijing with the victory of a pro-U.S. candidate (The Hill). 

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THE CLOSER

© The Associated Press / Eduardo Verdugo | Nineteen stray cats made history after the Mexican government declared them to be “living fixed assets.”

And finally … 🐈 They prowl through palace gardens stalking pigeons and make cameos during televised press briefings. Some greet tourists, while others steal licks of ice cream from staff.

Nineteen feral cats have free rein of Mexico’s National Palace, and now, the cats have pawsitively made history after the government of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador declared them to be the country’s first animal “living fixed assets.” By applying the label to cats, his government has obligated the country’s Treasury to give them food and care for them for the rest of their lives.

“The cats are now a symbol of the National Palace. Just as we understand this world, I wouldn’t understand the National Palace without the presence of these cats,” said Adriana Castillo Román, general director of the National Palace and Cultural Heritage Conservancy. “We have to make sure the cats are taken care of.”

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