Politics

“Huge Win!!!,” was the text I received from a congressional staffer at 12:44am on Wednesday, November 3, just 6 minutes after the Virginia Gubernatorial election was called in favor of Republican Glenn Youngkin. The staffer in attendance, front and center, at the Youngkin victory rally works for a Congressman whose district is more than 1200 miles away from the Virginia state capital. Funny, it wasn’t the text that concerned me so much; the truth is that the Republican sweep of the Virginia elections, as well as Republican gains nationwide, was a near political coup. What worried me was the number of exclamation points he used. Despite what one may hear on cable news, the election did not turn on a failure to pass President Biden’s reconciliation or infrastructure bills, nor was the campaign race driven. The Virginia elections turned on state issues—education, crime, and economic opportunity. The Republican gains were also not a referendum on former President Trump; the Youngkin campaign did not embrace President Trump and neither did the other two statewide Republican winners—Winsome Kelly (Lieutenant Governor) and Jason Miyares (Attorney General). In a state President Biden carried by 10 points, former Governor Terry McAuliffe’s campaign seemed tone deaf.

A friend of mine called me this week to get my take on the reconciliation and infrastructure bills making their way through Congress. He’s a small businessman who owns and operates more than 20 fitness centers across the state of Maryland, and his primary concern is over how Employee Retention Credits (ERCs) will be treated in the bills. As you can imagine, the past year and a half have been extremely challenging for his business, and the ERCs provided some degree of financial support. The issue he faces is while previous Covid relief legislation extended the credits through the fourth quarter of this year, the infrastructure bill inadvertently ends them after the third quarter. However, there has been discussion among lawmakers about rectifying the disconnect in the reconciliation bill. Although the ERCs are his immediate concern, and their eventual treatment will mean hundreds of thousands of dollars to his business, his longer-term concern is the breakdown in the legislative process.

My son is a huge comic book enthusiast. He was first introduced to them as a child; had his own Odd Couple-like strip called “Hubert and Brian” about the adventures of polar bear and penguin trying to find their way home; moved on to Manga, the Watchmen, and graphic novels like Saga; and now uses the medium to connect with his elementary school students. So, while it shocked me that Superman changed his motto from “Truth, Justice, and the American Way,” to “Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow,” my son had seen it coming for some time. While I’ve always felt that the American way is the path to a better tomorrow, it was still jarring to see how starkly segments of our society no longer view the country in this way. As a practitioner of government affairs, I am well aware of the deep partisan divides in our country as well as the grievances that have led some to want to fundamentally transform America.

Last night, former Washington National and future Hall of Famer, Max Sherzer recorded the first save of his career to send the Los Angeles Dodgers to the National League Championship Series against the Atlanta Braves. As exciting as the game was, for politicos it was nowhere near as intriguing as the “inside baseball” that is going on in the nation’s capital.

Thought of the Week: What is the MTB? And why is the Washington office lobbying for it?  The What: The Miscellaneous Tariff Bill (MTB) temporarily suspends or reduces tariffs on certain imported products. Many in Congress support MTBs as a relatively low-cost method of providing a competitive edge to U.S. businesses by reducing tariffs on

Thought of the Week: Would the U.S. actually default without a debt ceiling increase? The New York Times: “What a U.S. Debt Default Would Look Like;” USA Today: “What Happens if the U.S. Runs out of Money;” CNN: “No One would be Spared; Debt Default Would Set Off Dire Consequences.” The headlines are clear. Without

Thought of the Week: What Happens When Everything is Labeled a Crisis? “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” Rahm Emanuel uttered these famous lines shortly after Barack Obama had been elected

Thought of the Week: What does a lobbyist actually do? It’s a question I hear quite often, even living in Washington, D.C., which is home to more than 12,000 active lobbyists. In fact, the lobbying industry is arguably the U.S. government’s oldest profession and is protected by the First Amendment. While the term “lobbyist” dates

Thought of the Week: This Saturday will mark the 20th anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the United States. It strikes me that although I’ll never forget exactly where I was when I first heard the news that an American Airlines jetliner had hit the World Trade Center, it is likely that there are

Thought of the Week: Last weekend I did the unthinkable. Late in a golf match, with my partner out of the hole, having hit his tee shot out of bounds, and my competitors both safely on the green with birdie putts, I hit an easy approach shot into a greenside bunker, short-siding myself, and making