Essential Politics: Republicans (again) stumble on healthcare

Sept. 27, 2017 3 AM PT

On this, the 250th day of Republican control of both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, it feels as though healthcare policy may be the new third rail in American politics.

Like the electric current in some railway systems, it’s starting to seem dangerous to the touch. Especially for Republicans.

OBAMACARE REPEAL: THE ELUSIVE 50 VOTES

Republicans conceded on Tuesday that their latest effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act doesn’t have the votes needed to pass the Senate -- thus killing, it would seem, the simplest path toward undoing the 2010 law on a strictly partisan vote.

The high-profile effort by Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham was at least three votes short, and the plug was pulled on the effort after the weekly Senate GOP policy luncheon.

The stakes on all sides seemed to intensify in the past few days, and the proposal would have been an especially big hit on California. Sen. Dianne Feinstein had pleaded with the GOP members of California’s delegation to put the state before their party had the bill made it to the House.

Still, President Trump said on Tuesday that it’s not over. “It will happen,” Trump he said after arriving in New York for a big-ticket fundraising event on the city’s Upper East Side.

IT’S MOORE, NOT STRANGE, IN ALABAMA

The healthcare proposal’s failure wasn’t the final bad news for the president on Tuesday: The candidate he chose and begged Alabama voters to support lost a closely watched runoff for the Senate seat vacated earlier this year by Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions.

Roy Moore, a former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, handily defeated Sen. Luther Strange in a Republican primary runoff. Strange, who was appointed late last year, can now only sit and watch December’s general election pitting Moore against Democrat Doug Jones.

For his part, the president went down swinging, taking shots at Republican leaders in Congress in a Monday radio interview. And he didn’t exactly win offer praise for Moore, whose name he kept getting wrong.

“I don’t know Roy Moore at all and I think it’s perhaps indicative when somebody doesn’t even know his name— that’s not a good sign for him,” Trump said.

TAX PLAN: HELP FOR BUSINESS, A HIT TO CALIFORNIANS

The president will look to change the topic later today as he talks tax reform in Indiana. And a sneak peek at some of his proposals shows good news for corporate America but a bit of a hit to California.

While a lot of details remain unclear, the proposal calls for cutting the nation’s corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%. It also calls for scrapping the federal deduction for state taxes — something that’s saved money for Californians for years. Two of the state’s Democrats who met with Trump said on Tuesday that they want a seat at the tax reform table.

We’ll have more details later today on our Essential Washington news feed.

POLITICAL LIGHTNING ROUND

-- The president was on the defense in a Tuesday news conference on two fronts -- his administration’s response to hurricane destruction in Puerto Rico and his ongoing criticism of NFL players for taking a knee during the national anthem.

-- Even so, he took to Twitter again on Tuesday demanding that NFL officials enact a rule forcing players to stand for the song. Those comments came after he was roundly criticized by late-night talk show hosts on Monday.

-- Cathleen Decker writes that the fight with the NFL has pulled Americans back “into the vortex of partisanship.”

-- The athletes found a friend who would kneel on their behalf on the House floor on Tuesday: Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas).

-- Speaking of Puerto Rico, the president says he’ll visit the beleaguered U.S. territory next week.

-- Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker has decided not to seek reelection in 2018.

-- The Pentagon’s top military officer says he advised Trump against banning transgender troops.

-- Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke called his staff disloyal in a Monday meeting with the oil industry.

-- The Trump administration had a hurried meeting on Tuesday with Cuban officials over problems with the U.S. embassy.

-- North Korean banks and individuals were blacklisted on Tuesday, the newest sanctions imposed by the U.S. government.

-- The White House pushed back Tuesday on a Times story highlighting staff concerns with Trump calling North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “Rocket Man” during last week’s speech to the United Nations. But the president’s press secretary didn’t deny the facts reported by Brian Bennett.

-- An Associated Press investigation failed to answer several questions about the Chinese companies that produce merchandise for Ivanka Trump.

-- The unceasing turmoil of Donald Trump’s presidency, write Michael Finnegan and Mark Z. Barabak, has muted the outcry over Cabinet members’ free-spending ways.

SESSIONS WADES IN TO DEBATE OVER CAMPUS SPEECH

While voters in his home state were at the polls weighing in on his successor in the Senate, the attorney general lashed out Tuesday at what he described as attempts to limit free speech on college campuses.

“Freedom of thought and speech on the American campus are under attack,” Sessions said at Georgetown University. He said colleges that once were “a place of robust debate” have become “an echo chamber of political correctness and homogenous thought, a shelter for fragile egos.”

WHAT HAPPENS IF CALIFORNIA’S ‘SANCTUARY STATE’ PLAN BECOMES LAW?

There are about 670 bills still on the desk of Gov. Jerry Brown to either sign or veto over the next 18 days. None may be more controversial than the so-called “sanctuary state” bill to limit state and local law enforcement efforts in holding and questioning people on suspected federal immigration violations.

Jazmine Ulloa takes a look at what happens next if Brown signs the bill into law -- which seems likely, given his behind-the-scenes effort earlier this month to revise some of its key provisions.

ENVIRONMENTAL RELIEF FOR SOME BIG PROJECTS, BUT NOT OTHERS

When professional sports team owners, Facebook and big developers have asked California lawmakers in years past for help with the state’s main environmental law, the answer usually has been yes.

The California Environmental Quality Act requires developers to disclose and reduce a project’s effects on the environment — a process that can get tied up in lengthy litigation.

This year, legislators passed a measure aiming to shrink the time in which environmental lawsuits could be filed against Facebook’s expansion of its headquarters, two skyscrapers planned in Hollywood and other megaprojects. But doing so, Liam Dillon reports, has led some to question why only big projects get that kind of help.

TODAY’S ESSENTIALS

-- House Democrats are trying to force a vote on the Dream Act with a rarely successful procedural move.

-- “Dreamers” told us what the end of DACA would mean for them.

-- Brown signed a bill Tuesday that blocks the public release of police body camera footage depicting victims of rape and other crimes.

-- A Sacramento judge has rewritten the official title and summary for a proposed initiative to repeal California’s upcoming gas tax increase.

-- Monica Garcia is the new president of the Los Angeles Board of Education, after the former president, Ref Rodriguez, was charged with campaign finance violations.

-- When asked by a reporter, wealthy Democratic activist Tom Steyer didn’t rule out challenging Feinstein in 2018.

LOGISTICS

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