SLOUCHING TOWARD DACA: The Senate debate over immigration policy and protections for “Dreamers” made little headway Tuesday as leaders sparred over what type of policies should be considered. Just after noon, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell moved to set up a vote on an amendment to H.R. 2579 (115), the non-immigration bill serving as the vehicle for immigration proposals, from Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). Toomey’s amendment would target so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions that limit cooperation with federal immigration officials. But Minority Leader Chuck Schumer balked at the topic as outside the parameters of the debate, saying it “would be getting off on the wrong foot.” The rest of the day yielded little visible progress, as POLITICO’s Burgess Everett and Elana Schor report.
How much time does the Senate have? Republican leaders have signaled their intention to pull the plug by Friday (Congress isn’t in session next week). On Twitter, President Donald Trump tried to express a sense of urgency, flagging the March 5 deadline that his administration set to wind down DACA. “Republicans want to make a deal and Democrats say they want to make a deal,” he tweeted. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could finally, after so many years, solve the DACA puzzle. This will be our last chance, there will never be another opportunity! March 5th.” In truth, Trump’s deadline is no longer especially relevant, with two federal orders requiring the administration to process DACA renewals for the foreseeable future (more on that later).
Trump’s determination to “solve the DACA puzzle” shouldn’t be mistaken for flexibility, POLITICO’s Burgess Everett reports. The president “is refusing to budge from his immigration framework, and he and his allies on Capitol Hill are laying the groundwork to heap the blame on Democrats if the Senate fails to reach a deal this week,” writes Everett. “In Trump’s view, according to administration officials and GOP senators, he’s already compromised beyond where he and his staff felt comfortable by offering 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship. And if Democrats want to step up this week and sink the president’s proposal, that will be on them, they said.” The framework includes $25 billion for a border wall and deep cuts to legal immigration. The latter remains especially unlikely to attract Democratic support. (And Democrats still haven’t settled on a plan, as Elana Schor and Heather Caygle report).
“The standoff means the Senate’s immigration debate is likely destined for failure absent a course correction from Trump, [McConnell or Schumer]” writes Everett. “Such a result would be a major blow to Dreamers facing the threat of deportation as well as the institution, where dozens of senators in both parties are searching for a bipartisan solution.” Read more about Trump’s stance here.
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY AND ASH WEDNESDAY! It's Wednesday, Feb. 14, and this is Morning Shift, POLITICO's daily tipsheet on employment and immigration policy. Send tips, exclusives and suggestions to thesson@politico.com, ikullgren@politico.com, ahanna@politico.com and tnoah@politico.com. Follow us on Twitter at @tedhesson, @AndrewBHanna, @IanKullgren and @TimothyNoah1.
MORE DACA:
Grassley releases amendment text: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Tuesday night released legislative text of an immigration proposal that aligns with the White House framework. Read through the 592-page amendment here and a summary here.
Second judge blocks DACA phaseout: A Brooklyn-based federal judge ordered the Trump administration Tuesday to restart temporarily the DACA program, POLITICO’s Ted Hesson reports. “The move won’t have immediate consequences, since in January a federal judge in California similarly ordered the administration to restart DACA renewals. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services last month resumed accepting DACA renewals for the first time since October.”
The March 5 date remains relevant only insofar as the time needed to process DACA renewals might result in some lapses in work eligibility for people whose DACA status expires next month. This second district court ruling is, Hesson writes, “a fresh legal blow to President Donald Trump’s decision to phase out the program.” More here. Read the Brooklyn district court ruling here.
Chamber key vote alert: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday issued a key vote alert to senators about what it wants included in that immigration bill: relief for Dreamers and immigrants with temporary protected status; no reduction in legal immigration; “responsible border security efforts” (whatever that means); a “workable” agricultural guest-worker program (translation: one regulated not by the Labor Department but by the Agriculture Department); and mandatory E-verify. “A functioning immigration system should promote legal immigration, not discourage it,” writes Suzanne Clark, senior executive vice president. Read the letter here.
TODAY: MULVANEY TESTIFIES ON BUDGET: White House budget director Mick Mulvaney will testify before the House Budget Committee at 10 a.m. He’ll likely field questions about the administration’s decision to make it easier to fire federal employees and an $18 billion request for border wall funds. Democrats may also press the self-proclaimed deficit hawk further on his public comments, repeated Tuesday, that if he were still in Congress he probably wouldn’t vote for this budget. (His office later clarified that he was referring not to the fiscal 2019 budget but to last week’s spending bill. But it’s a distinction without much difference, since OMB’s budget proposal incorporates spending increases that were included in the spending bill.) The hearing takes place in Longworth 1334. Watch a livestream here.
MURRAY DELAYED RING CONFIRMATION HEARING: The confirmation hearing for NLRB nominee John Ring was delayed until March 1 at the request of Senate HELP Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-Wash.), according to a spokesperson for Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). A Democratic aide confirmed that Murray made the request, citing questions about NLRB member William Emanuel’s potential conflicts of interest and organizational changes to the NLRB proposed by General Counsel Peter Robb that would reduce the power of regional offices (which business groups consider too pro-labor). “Given everything that’s going on … we have just asked for more time to find out what is going on,” the aide said.
The NLRB inspector general is investigating Emanuel’s role in overturning Browning-Ferris, the 2015 NLRB decision that loosened the definition of joint employment, making it somewhat easier to hold corporations liable for labor violations committed by their franchisees and contractors. Emanuel’s former firm, Littler-Mendelson, represented a party in the case, but Emanuel maintained he did not know about its involvement. He has yet to respond to a Feb. 6 letter by Democratic lawmakers asking about his participation, according to the aforementioned aide.
Democrats may simply be stalling for time. “The more delay, the better,” said Michael Lotito of Littler-Mendelson. “The Democrats do not want a Republican majority board and will continue all they can to reduce the amount of time when such a board will be in place, as they hope to regain a board majority in 2021.” Another possibility: Mark Gaston Pearce’s term ends in August, opening a Democratic slot that the Senate Republican majority may feel disinclined to fill … unless that nominee is paired with the Republican Ring. If that’s what’s going on, then Democrats might hang onto Ring with the fierceness of Gollum (“my precious”) until summer. Though Morning Shift must confess to some uncertainty as to whether it’s within the minority’s power to stall that long.
PORTMAN, CAPITO WANT SEATS ON PENSIONS SUPERCOMMITTEE: Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.) are angling to be placed on a joint select committee on pensions created during last week's budget deal, according to a source close to the negotiations. The two Republican senators hail from states with plenty of constituents at risk if large multiemployer pension plans (like the Teamsters' Central States) go under. Capito approached Majority Leader Mitch McConnell about joining the committee, the source added. The offices of McConnell, Capito and Portman did not provide further comment.
The “supercommittee” will include eight senators and eight House members split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, according to the final budget deal signed by Trump last week. Earlier, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) stated (and we reported) that fewer members would serve on the committee. Maybe Brown had it wrong, or maybe the arrangement changed after Brown spoke.
DEM REPORT: RETIREMENT SECURITY IN PERIL: A new report by Congressional Joint Economic Committee Democrats warns that American retirement security could be in peril due to slow wage growth, skimpier pension plans, and insufficient access to workplace retirement savings plans. The report, released today, recommends that Congress raise the payroll tax cap (set right now at about $128,000) to fund Social Security, and establish tax credits for startups that offer retirement contribution plans, among other measures. Read it here.
COLUMBIA GRAD UNION MOVES TOWARD STRIKE: The union for student workers at Columbia University is threatening a strike to force the university’s president, Lee Bollinger, to enter collective bargaining negotiations. After the landmark NLRB ruling in 2016 affirmed the right of student workers at Columbia and elsewhere to unionize, student workers voted overwhelmingly in favor of doing just that. The university, however, said last month it wouldn’t negotiate with the union, even after losing on appeal. “Now that the NLRB rejected your attempt to nullify our vote and certify GWC-UAW as a union,” the union said in a letter to Bollinger, “your administration as a legal — in addition to moral and democratic — obligation to bargain. … If you continue to defy the legal obligation to bargain, GWC-UAW intends to hold a strike authorization vote.” Private colleges and universities have lately been dragging their feet on bargaining collectively with graduate students in the expectation that the 2016 Columbia ruling will be reversed by the courts or by the Trump NLRB. More here.
EEOC BLOOD DISORDER CASE: The EEOC charged Tuesday that an ExxonMobil refinery in Texas fired, illegally, three brothers with a blood disorder. The brothers had Hemophilia A, a blood disease that makes it difficult to clot wounds but had no bearing on the brothers’ work duties, the agency found. According to the EEOC, mid-level managers were told to fire the brothers out of concern that they could cause the company’s insurance costs to spike. All three brothers and received positive reviews, and one of them was given a promotion and raise before he was fired. More here.
FORMER NLRB REGIONAL OFFICERS OPPOSE CHANGES: “Fifty-six retired National Labor Relations Board regional office leaders have asked general counsel Peter Robb to consider scrapping his reported plan to restructure the agency’s field office system, saying his plan ‘clearly misses the mark,’” Vin Gurrieri reports in Law360, which obtained a related letter Tuesday. “The signatories to the Feb. 6 letter include regional directors from every presidential administration dating back to President Richard Nixon. They expressed concern with a plan recently shared by Robb with current regional directors that would add an additional layer of oversight to the agency’s 26 regional offices and demote current regional directors to a lesser classification.” More here.
VICE FACES PAY LAWSUIT: “Vice Media, whose founders have already acknowledged a failure to ‘create a safe and inclusive workplace,’ was sued Tuesday by a former employee who said the company marginalized women and systematically discriminated against them by paying men substantially more for similar work,” Emily Steel reports in the New York Times. “The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, is seeking class-action status and says that the group could cover more than 700 people, including all the women who worked for Vice Media in New York within the last six years.” More here.
MELANIA’S PARENTS AND ‘CHAIN’ MIGRATION: With a contentious immigration debate as the backdrop, the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler digs into the possible immigration pathways that Melania Trump’s parents may have taken to remain in the United States over the past year (prominent among them the “chain migration” for parents that Trump is trying to eliminate). When Kessler sent a list to Stephanie Grisham, spokeswoman for the first lady, she replied that “none of those options apply,” deepening the mystery. Read through the fact check here.
PEPSI MIXES BONUSES AND LAYOFFS: “PepsiCo reported flat revenue for the last few months of 2017, and said that it will cut some jobs while giving others bonuses of up to $1,000,” the Associated Press reports. “The layoffs, which will affect its corporate employees, amounts to less than 1 percent of its more than 110,000 employees, the company said Tuesday. Bonuses go to those who make PepsiCo's snacks and drinks, and those who deliver them.” More here.
COFFEE BREAK:
—“Employers who don’t offer paid sick leave are making flu season worse and hurting their own bottom line,” from the Washington Post
—“Success for Harvard medical students in DACA could mean their parents are deported,” from CNN
—“ICE deportation cases: your questions answered,” from the New York Times
—“Walmart to trim store management ranks,” from the Wall Street Journal
—“A deputy mayor compared undocumented immigrants to raccoons. His resignation was met with applause,” from the Washington Post
THAT’S ALL FOR MORNING SHIFT.
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