[CTC] Cruz leading charge to kill congressional lame duck

[Arthur Stamoulis]

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/276244-cruz-leading-charge-to-kill-congressional-lame-duck

*Cruz leading charge to kill congressional lame duck*

Ted Cruz <http://thehill.com/people/ted-cruz> is leading a conservative
effort to end any chance of a lame-duck congressional session at the end of
the year.

Cruz, a freshman senator from Texas running for president, and
right-leaning groups see huge dangers in having a session after the
November elections, which they think could be used to move legislation
backed by President Obama or even to confirm his Supreme Court nominee.

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Indeed, business groups disappointed with the glacial pace in Congress this
year see the lame duck as virtually the only chance of moving some of their
most prized bills, including legislation implementing the Trans-Pacific
Partnership trade deal.

“Passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership is the No. 1 fear of grassroots
conservatives and Tea Party voters with regard to a lame-duck session,”
said a senior GOP aide familiar with the movement.

“I’m guessing K Street will want a massive lame-duck session unless Hillary
Clinton <http://thehill.com/people/hillary-clinton> wins the White House.
They know they better get what they can while Barack Obama
<http://thehill.com/people/barack-obama>, Paul Ryan
<http://thehill.com/people/paul-ryan> andMitch
<http://thehill.com/people/mitch-mcconnell> McConnell
<http://thehill.com/people/mitch-mcconnell> are in charge,” the aide said,
referring to D.C.’s lobbying community.

“They’ll get more than they would under President Donald Trump
<http://thehill.com/people/donald-trump> or President Ted Cruz,” the aide
added.

Movement conservative leaders who have worked with Cruz say they’ll be
collaborating with him to quash talk of a lame-duck session before it has a
chance to gain momentum.

Cruz hasn’t voted in the Senate since Feb. 10, but he hasn’t missed much —
GOP leaders have shelved most of the controversial items until after the
elections.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told The Washington Post in
December that the TPP shouldn’t come up before the elections, but didn’t go
so far as to rule out a vote in 2016.

Conservative leaders are circulating a letter urging Speaker Paul Ryan
(R-Wis.) and McConnell to swear off the prospect of a legislative session
in the window between Election Day and the start of a new Congress.

“By promising now that there will be no lame duck session of Congress
(except, of course, in the case of an unforeseen sudden emergency requiring
immediate federal action) the Republican-led Congress can take an important
first step in restoring the American people’s trust in their government,”
the groups wrote in a letter organized by the Conservative Action Project.

The lead signers were Edwin Meese III, who served as attorney general under
former President Ronald Reagan, and Becky Norton Dunlop, a former Reagan
adviser and chairwoman of the Conservative Action Project.

The group had collected more than 70 signatures as of Wednesday afternoon,
according to a person familiar with the effort.

Other early signers are Kenneth Blackwell, chairman of Constitutional
Congress Inc.; David Bozell, president of ForAmerica; Brent Bozell, founder
and president of the Media Research Center; and T. Kenneth Cribb, Jr., a
former Reagan adviser.

What’s notable about the pressure campaign is that it’s happening nearly
seven months before Election Day.

Cruz is likely to have strong support from House conservatives, who gave
him enough political muscle to stand up GOP leaders in 2013 when the
government shut down in the midst of an effort to stop the implementation
of ObamaCare.

The Huffington Post reported that conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus
have discussed different strategies for killing a lame-duck session,
perhaps by voting en bloc against procedural motions.

Grassroots conservatives say they’re mobilizing early to get ahead of the
powerful business groups that want the TPP, the largest trade deal in U.S.
history, passed before Obama leaves office.

Conservatives also fear that a massive omnibus spending bill might move
after the election.

“There’s a great concern, generally, that there will be major spending
efforts contrary to conservative principles being pushed through by
Republican leaders in alliance with Democrats,” said Tom Fitton, president
of Judicial Watch.

Members of the U.S. Coalition for TPP, which includes some of the biggest
multi-national companies and manufacturers in the country, see the lame
duck as their best chance for getting the massive trade bill through
Congress, something that is likely to be an uphill fight.

“The NAM is strongly supportive of moving forward the TPP. We certainly
would like to see it move forward this year. We joined with many of our
sister associations to expand the leadership of the existing coalition,”
said Linda Dempsey, vice president of international economic affairs at the
National Association of Manufacturers.

The other leaders of the TPP coalition include the Business Roundtable, the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Farm Bureau.

The trade deal faces strong political headwinds. The four leading
Republican and Democratic candidates for president — Cruz, Donald Trump,
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders
<http://thehill.com/people/bernie-sanders> — all oppose it.

If the TPP does not pass by the new year, it could take another three years
to renegotiate the pact and move it through Congress again.

“If we don’t get it done this year, and it increasingly looks like our only
shot is the lame duck, we’re probably not going to be in a good place to
help American industry, which wants to export to those 11 countries,” an
official at one of the business groups said of the agreement.

The official said conservatives are trying to stir up opposition to a lame
duck based on vague fears.

“They’ll say we know mischief will happen without saying what the mischief
is,” the official said.

Another trade association official said the big push for passage of the TPP
will likely come after the election.

“We’re talking to the administration and we’re talking to [Capitol Hill].
We want them together to find that best timing and a lot of that frankly
looks like the lame duck,” the official said.

Conservative strategists say they need to mobilize now to counteract these
plans.

“It’s certainly something we’ve been talking about for a while. What is the
universe of things that might come up during a lame duck? It’s not anything
good. We’re getting people to think that far in advance,” said Dan Holler,
spokesman for Heritage Action for America, a conservative advocacy group.

“The business community is certainly thinking in those terms, and I’m sure
members of Democratic and Republican leadership are as well. It’s important
that conservatives understand what’s looming.”

But not all conservative leaders agree the lame-duck session needs to be
stopped. Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, said a
late session could help clear the decks before a new Republican president
takes office.

Or it could allow congressional Republicans to negotiate a better deal on
something than they would likely get from a Democratic president-elect.

Norquist said opposition to the TPP “is not a consensus position in the
modern conservative movement.”

Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826
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