DHS Talks Derail

Today’s notice: DHS funding negotiations unravel. The House’s spy powers reauthorization gets complicated. Mary Peltola’s spending spree. Progressives roll out a new policy agenda. Plus: The latest installment in our Capitol Gains series.

THE LATEST

It’s official: You’d rather be in line at the airport than dealing with the Senate’s DHS funding quagmire. This morning marks 41 days of shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security, and the Senate appears to be about as close to a solution as it was on Day 1.

Maybe less close, even. “They’re clearly, and tragically, not bargaining in good faith,” Republican Sen. Susan Collins seethed last night about her Democratic colleagues — not her standard tone when it comes to dealmaking. Democrats said similar things about Republicans and Donald Trump, as NOTUS’ Hill team reports on a very frustrated Senate.

Republican negotiators are having trouble getting their conference (and Trump) on board to first fund DHS without money for immigration enforcement, then find a pathway to fund ICE and pass parts of the SAVE America Act. A planned vote on this scheme last night was canceled after Senate Republican Leader John Thune came out and told reporters, “There’s no point in doing that.”

Democrats feel like they have the momentum here, and their caucus is more unified than Republicans on what kind of deal it wants. Republicans have to figure out exactly what it is they want to do before they can try to pry Democrats apart.

One helpful tool for those tracking a potential deal: Recess is supposed to start next week. For now, Thune seems ready to cancel it. But remember: Senators would rather be waiting for TSA screenings than still talking in circles about DHS funding. So the call of the airport may end up being the most potent voice in this process.

Open tabs: Inside Trump’s daily video montage briefing on the Iran war (NBC); T.S.A. Tipped Off ICE Agents Before Arrests at San Francisco Airport (NYT); Corey Lewandowski out of government — after taking last taxpayer-funded junket with Kristi Noem (NY Post); Democratic Congressman Bans His Staff From Gambling on Prediction Markets (NOTUS)

From the Hill

Josh Hawley’s abortion pill lead balloon: “I am extremely pro-life and I’ve never been anything but pro-life. But I’m going to go ahead and stick with President Trump on this one and not the senator,” Rep. Max Miller, a Republican from Ohio, said recently as a way of distancing himself from Hawley’s proposal to ban mifepristone. NOTUS’ Oriana González reports that a lot of Hill Republicans are backing away from this idea, even as anti-abortion groups continue to press for a ban.

Meanwhile, privacy hawks in the House are making life difficult for Republican leaders who want to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, NOTUS’ Helen Huiskes reports.

Lawmakers on both sides are complicating matters. Democrats are worried the Trump administration would use the law to more broadly surveil U.S. citizens, while members of the House Freedom Caucus say they want more privacy guardrails to be put in place.

From the campaign trail

Mary Peltola’s spending spree: The former Democratic congresswoman and current Senate candidate in Alaska saw her House campaign committee spend big after she left Congress — often on expenses that appear to have little connection to a House campaign effort, NOTUS’ Dave Levinthal reports. $50,000 on airline tickets and lodging; $8,000-plus on catering and meals; and more than $1,300 on ground transportation — mostly for public appearances and other political confabs.

Is this OK? The FEC has a definition of prohibited personal use of funds that is somewhat vague. There’s also not really a functioning FEC right now to adjudicate such things, as NOTUS has reported.

“It very much seems like she treated her House campaign as a personal slush fund,” a spox for Sen. Dan Sullivan, the Republican that Peltola hopes to defeat this fall, said.

“Mary’s top priority will always be putting Alaska first,” a Peltola spox told Dave.

THE BIG ONE

Progressive lawmakers are throwing spaghetti at the wall as they attempt to build a vision for what a future under Democratic control could look like — and they’re doing it by trying to address the issues currently upsetting Americans.

Exhibit A: People are worried about data centers. The Pew Research Center found this month that most Americans worry more about data centers’ negative impact on the environment and energy costs than they value their potential for local revenue and jobs. Only 26% of voters hold positive views about AI generally, an NBC News survey that concluded March 3 found. But the same poll also found that Democrats are somehow even more unpopular than AI.

Enter Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who announced a bill to place a temporary nationwide stop on data center construction to help address those concerns, NOTUS’ Torrie Herrington reports.

Exhibit B: People can’t afford kids. And that’s largely driving Americans’ concerns about the economy. A majority of voters under 45 say that having a family “has become unaffordable,” a New York Times/Siena University poll from January found.

Enter Sen. Elizabeth Warren & Co. The Massachusetts progressive is joining forces with Sen. Patty Murray, Rep. Bobby Scott and Ocasio-Cortez to create a cross-Capitol working group that writes legislation to address child care costs, NOTUS’ Daniella Diaz exclusively reports.

“Having a child shouldn’t be a privilege, it shouldn’t be a luxury, it should be a choice that should be accessible to everyone, and child care is a part of that,” Ocasio-Cortez told Daniella.

NEW ON NOTUS

Homeowners association: At least 24 members of the New York congressional delegation own or have owned a home — a fact that makes them very different from many of their constituents in the state, which has the lowest rate of homeownership. The member with the most homes? Rep. Dan Goldman, who has listed three active mortgages in his public disclosure documents, NOTUS’ Shifra Dayak reports.

She breaks it all down in the latest story from NOTUS’ Capitol Gains project.

More: Dems Say FEMA Official Who Claimed He’s Teleported Is ‘Unfit’ for Role, by Torrence Banks

Top Trump Housing Official Tries, Again, to Bring a Criminal Case Against Letitia James, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

NOT US

• Democrats Spend Big but Face Tough Fight in Virginia Gerrymandering Battle, by Campbell Robertson and Theodore Schleifer for The New York Times
  
• What a GOP loss in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago district says about the midterms, by Dan Merica and Marianna Sotomayor for The Washington Post
  
• The Green New Deal fades as climate activism evolves, by David Weigel for Semafor

Thank you for reading! If you liked this edition of the NOTUS newsletter, please forward it to a friend. If this newsletter was shared with you, please subscribe — it’s free! Have a tip? Email us at tips@notus.org. And as always, we’d love to hear your thoughts at newsletters@notus.org.