- Democratic Leadership has a self-imposed September 27th deadline for the proposed $3.5 Trillion reconciliation package (when House lawmakers have pledged to pass the corresponding $1.2 Trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework);
- Only two weeks until the end of federal Fiscal Year 2021;
- Dire calls from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to raise the debt ceiling before the end of the month.
Regarding the debt ceiling and government funding, last Friday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told House Democrats of the plan to pass a stopgap spending bill next week (to run through December 10th) in order to avoid a government shutdown. Democratic leaders are also considering combining that funding bill with action to raise the debt ceiling, as well as rolling in funding for other urgent matters including hurricane and flood damages from recent Hurricane Ida and Afghan resettlement efforts. That move would be the majority party’s first step in forcing Republicans to either pony up the votes to avert the impending debt cliff or sink the combination plan to wave off multiple national crises.
On reconciliation, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Leadership have to contend with moderate Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) who have both said they will not support a $3.5 trillion package (the bare minimum dollar amount for progressives). While entire policies in the bill may not be thrown out, the complicated caucus dynamics could also lead to changes in funding levels or duration of key programs. Meanwhile, Senate Leadership and the White House must also manage relationships between increasingly polarized factions of the Caucus—Manchin and Sinema on one side and progressives like Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt)—whose demands will both have to be met in order to meet a 50-vote threshold. Manchin and Sanders’ contradictory demands underscore a larger schism in the Democratic Party heading into 2022’s midterm elections—where the White House and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)’s ability to manage these relationships over the next few weeks and pass a bill will have a major impact on the outcome. “[Sanders and Manchin] really do mirror each other in terms of representing different ends of the Democratic coalition. … They’re kind of avatars of like the two wings of the Democratic Party,” said one Democratic strategist.
Beyond the intra-Caucus dynamics, the Senate’s parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, still can torpedo a number of priorities, including language that would provide a pathway to citizenship for “Dreamers”, and the pro-worker Protect the Right to Organize Act . Democratic Staffers have been meeting with MacDonough over the past few weeks to make their pitches against jettisoning both priorities. “We believe that passing this legislation through reconciliation is permissible because the bill’s budgetary effects are a substantial, direct and intended result and the non-budgetary effects do not so disproportionately outweigh the budgetary effects as to make them merely incidental,” a Democratic aide said.
educators and students to be vaccinated and said state employees are to be vaccinated by October 12 or face weekly testing. The latter directive will also apply to Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey workers. She also announced the opening of a $40 million Biodefense Commercialization Fund and the implementation of workplace safety plans for COVID-19 as an airborne disease under the HERO Act, which passed both Houses of the Legislature earlier this year.- Jeff Lewis, Chief of Staff
- Melissa Bochenski, Deputy Chief of Staff
- Linda Sun, Deputy Chief of Staff
- Padma Seemangal, Deputy Secretary for Policy Operations
to the Cannabis Control Board—tasked with implementing and overseeing New York State’s new Cannabis framework in the Marihuana Regulation and Taxation Act (MRTA). Heastie appointed OD&A friend Adam W. Perry, a partner at Buffalo law firm Hodgson Russ, and Stewart-Cousins appointed former State Senator Jen Metzger, the former Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee. The Board is responsible for the roll out of regulations, granting of licenses and overseeing permitting processes for the state’s cannabis program, which is expected to become a multi-million-dollar industry in the coming years.
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