IN THE HOUSE: The House will come back into session on Saturday, August 22, to vote on the Delivering for America Act, legislation that would prohibit the U.S. Postal Service from implementing any changes to the operations or level of service it had in place on January 1, until the pandemic has ended. As introduced August 11 by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), the bill would prohibit the USPS from revising service standards, closing post offices or reducing hours, barring overtime pay, and making other changes that would delay mail or increase the volume of undelivered mail. The legislation is still being finalized and could end up including $25 billion in emergency funding for the Postal Service, funding that was also provided in the Heroes Act that the House passed May 15.
Rep. Maloney, chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said today that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and Robert Duncan, chair of the Postal Service Board of Governors, have agreed to testify before her committee next Monday, August 24.
We're watching for moves by either party to attach covid-19 stimulus funds to the USPS bill reviving stalled negotiations between Capitol Hill leaders and the White House.
POLITICS:
Elections: Alaska, Florida, and Wyoming will hold primaries today. Democrats in Alaska will choose who will face Senator Dan Sullivan in November, while Republican voters in Wyoming are picking their nominee to replace retiring Senator Mike Enzi, with former Rep. Cynthia Loomis the front runner in that race. Most of the attention in Florida will be on House races, including crowded Republican primaries to replace retiring Republican Reps. Ted Yoho and Francis Rooney.
Dem Convention: The Democratic National Convention kicked off last night. The entirely virtual event will be significantly shorter than any previous convention. There will be fewer speeches and the roll-call vote will be only a half-hour. Democrats are also doing away with the typical keynote address on Tuesday night, and instead 17 of the party’s “rising stars” will make brief remarks. Programming will be aired every night from 9:00 to 11:00, with the major networks providing coverage that begins at 10 p.m. and other outlets covering the full two hours. The convention will conclude with Joe Biden’s acceptance speech on Thursday night. Both Biden and California Senator Kamala Harris, who will speak on Wednesday, will deliver their remarks from a largely empty hall at the Chase Center in Wilmington, DE. Last night's featured speakers were former First Lady Michelle Obama and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) as well as four Republicans led by former Ohio Governor and Congressman John Kasich. The production was a far cry from past conventions we've observed, but the featured Democrats stayed on message and were effective at displaying unity after a bruising primary which is a distant memory given the events of the past five months.
Polls: Two new national polls testing the full presidential ticket for both parties were just released. An ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Biden and Harris with a 10-point lead among likely voters. A CNN/SSRS poll taken at the same time also has Biden and Harris up, but with a much narrower four-point margin, 50-46.
Capital Brief will resurface after Labor Day. We'll still be in the mix and will send updates in the event Congress reconvenes beforehand to take up stimulus relief.
With the Covid-19 pandemic still pervasive in the U.S. and Election Day 2020 just ten weeks away, tensions between China and the U.S. are about to spill over into the the election season.
We will be talking once again with one of the top China scholars in the world—Derek Scissors from the American Enterprise Institute. He will offer unique insight on the direction of U.S.-China relations in the near term, leading up to November 3 and distill key implications beyond.
We'll cover the status of the “Phase One” trade deal at the six-month mark, supply chain disruption, the implications for a Trump or Biden victory in November - and other topics as well.
Please join us on Monday, August 24 at 12:30 pm.
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