Money, Money, Money (Money)

Today’s notice: Democrats had a good fundraising quarter. What RFK Jr. is going to tell Congress this morning. Republicans send mixed messages to labor. And: Abortion opponents want to be a part of the next GOP reconciliation bill.

THE LATEST

Big night for Democrats, with a big asterisk: The Q1 FEC reports are in, and the early take is it’s not just the polls and the prognosticators — Democrats have fundraising momentum, too. NOTUS’ Alex Roarty and the newsroom pored over the numbers and found Democrats’ top candidates reported gargantuan fundraising totals.

• In Texas, James Talarico raised a truly staggering $27 million for his Senate run.
  
• Roy Cooper, the Senate nominee in North Carolina, raised nearly $14 million, similar to the totals for other prominent Senate hopefuls like Sherrod Brown in Ohio ($12.5 million) and Mary Peltola in Alaska ($9 million).
  

It was a similar story in the House, with top Democratic candidates outraising the Republicans they’re running against.

But fret not, Republicans, money is not your problem. Outside groups supporting GOP candidates have a seemingly limitless pile of cash to spend — routinely much, much more than groups allied with Democrats do. Plus there’s that unprecedented stack Donald Trump has amassed for the midterms, reportedly set to be unleashed starting next month.

Other fundraising notes: Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales departed Congress with plenty of cash in their campaign funds, NOTUS’ Taylor Giorno and Torrie Herrington found. Save America PAC, which Trump has used to pay legal bills in the past, is $500K in debt while owing $1.6 million to a roster of law firms, NOTUS’ Em Luetkemeyer reports. And D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto vastly outraised her opponents in the nasty race to replace retiring Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Taylor writes.

Open tabs: Pentagon Approaches Automakers, Manufacturers to Boost Weapons Production (WSJ); A Progressive Group Rolls Out a Campus Competitor to Turning Point (NYT); Democratic Senators Overwhelmingly Reject Arms Sales to Israel (The Intercept); FDA to weigh easing limits on unproven peptides favored by RFK Jr. (AP)

From the Hill

Must-watch congressional action today: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will testify before the House Ways and Means Committee at 9 a.m. It will be lawmakers’ first chance to publicly question the health secretary since HHS significantly amended the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule, revised a federal website to contradict the scientific consensus that vaccines don’t cause autism, revamped federal nutrition guidance and cut funding to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Kennedy’s opening remarks, reviewed by NOTUS’ Paige Cunningham, tout a laundry list of efforts to lower drug prices, update nutrition guidelines and root out fraud, but avoid the far more controversial changes his agency has made. Kennedy plans to say that he is “ending the era of federal policies that fueled this chronic disease epidemic — and replacing them with policies that put the health of the American people first.”

Can Republicans embrace organized labor? Republican Sen. Josh Hawley is trying to sell his conference on a bill which, among other things, would require employers to start negotiations for a first contract within 10 days of a union’s certification. It’s part of his populist agenda he thinks the GOP needs to embrace to secure its place as the party of America’s working class. The Teamsters have endorsed it, Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno has signed on and … well, that’s close to about it, NOTUS’ Jade Lozada reports.

“With the language of the bill, the way that it’s written, unions can be unreasonable and win,” David Cleary, a former Republican staff director of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told her, saying basically all that needs to be said about the bill’s chances.

From the NLRB

The Trump board is near: This week Trump nominated James Macy, currently the Department of Labor’s director of workers’ compensation programs, to join the National Labor Relations Board. If confirmed, he would bring the Republican majority to 3-1 on the five-member board (Trump fired Democratic member Gwynne Wilcox last January).

The shift would allow Republican members to roll back policies passed under Joe Biden, Jade writes, including a 2022 decision requiring employers to compensate workers who were victims of unfair labor practices for “direct or foreseeable” financial harms resulting from those practices.

From the Interior Department

First on NOTUS: Ignoring Congress? During budget negotiations in 2025, Republicans and Democrats worked out a deal for the Department of the Interior to provide reports every 60 days on the status of federal energy projects. Democrats wanted information on what they feared was intentional slow-walking of green-energy projects, and Republicans said they’d agree to it only if all energy projects were included. Democrats say two reports due March 24 haven’t arrived yet, NOTUS’ Anna Kramer reports. The department did not respond to a request for comment.

What comes next: Secretary Doug Burgum is set to testify next week before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees Interior. Expect Democrats to grill him about this.

From the campaign trail

Bonus fundraising numbers: Who’s ahead in Pennsylvania’s 7th District? That would be Ryan Crosswell, a former federal prosecutor who quit after refusing to drop the case against then-New York Mayor Eric Adams. He outraised the other Democrats running in the primary, including Bob Brooks, the candidate endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and the commonwealth’s governor, Josh Shapiro.

THE BIG ONE

Anti-abortion leaders want in on reconciliation: The next Republican-only funding bill is aimed at providing money for immigration enforcement, but one of social conservatism’s most powerful movements sees an opportunity to effectively defund Planned Parenthood, NOTUS’ Oriana González and Al Weaver report. The last reconciliation bill included a one-year suspension of federal funding to the health-care provider, leading to multiple facility closures. But the suspension expires in July, and abortion opponents don’t want to miss out on an opportunity to finish off what the CEO of Americans United for Life called “a wounded dog.”

The challenge: Republican leaders are eager to keep the reconciliation bill as tightly focused on immigration as possible. But the anti-abortion movement warns that ignoring it in an election year is hazardous. “You don’t see the people who want to see more military spending or support a flat tax out there door knocking,” Kristi Hamrick of Students for Life Action said. “The social conservatives really are the ground game of the Republican Party.”

Democrats are watching all this closely. NOTUS’ Igor Bobic reports that the party out of power is warning Republicans it will also use reconciliation to its benefit when it gets the chance. “Once you have established a precedent, the other side is going to take a careful look and see if it benefits them,” Dick Durbin, veteran Democratic senator and experienced appropriator, said of the shift toward reconciliation to get funding passed.

Caveat: Democrats have to win in 2028 and remain as unified as Republicans have been under Trump 2.0 to make good on this threat.

NEW ON NOTUS

Pretty please: Senate Republicans are pleading with Trump to lay off Fed Chair Jerome Powell and end a criminal investigation into his congressional testimony about a renovation project at the central bank’s headquarters, Al and Jasmine report.

“I don’t think there should be one second of time between the end of Jay Powell’s term and the beginning of Kevin Warsh’s,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, a Banking Committee member and longtime critic of the Fed chair, said. “Anything that doesn’t have that as its goal is an unnecessary distraction. It seems like a lot of resources on something that doesn’t seem all that big of a deal.”

More: Army Shuts Down Social Media Accounts After They Praised Tammy Duckworth’s Service, by Torrie Herrington

NOT US

• How Eric Swalwell rose to the top of Democratic politics as rumors followed him, by Liz Goodwin for The Washington Post
  
• Inside Pakistan’s turnaround with Trump, by Daniella Cheslow and Sophia Cai for Politico
  
• Jared Kushner’s Mysterious Role in the Trump Administration, by Andrea Bernstein for The Atlantic
  
• Audio: US Congress members targets of increasing violent threats, by Tal Kopan and Jim Puzzanghera for The Boston Globe

BE SOCIAL

This isn’t what they meant when they said “drain the swamp.”

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