Presented by

With an assist from Katherine Tully-McManus and Jordain Carney

THE COUNTDOWN CONTINUES: There are only 11 legislative days left before lawmakers are scheduled to start their August recess.

HOUSE DROWNING IN DEFENSE AMENDMENTS

Early bird gets the hearing: Congress’ massive annual defense policy bill will have its moment in the small but mighty House Rules Committee, where the massive annual defense policy bill will be under a microscope before it heads to the floor. The panel has slated an earlier than usual call time (noon) to allow lengthy debate over how many of the 1,502 proposed amendments will get floor action. (Yes, you heard that number right.)

Reminder: The NDAA is not a funding bill – it’s a policy bill. Funding is handled by the Appropriations committee.

Who we’re watching: Recall that Speaker Kevin McCarthy named three conservatives to the Rules panel as a concession to the right during his fight for the gavel: Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and Chip Roy (R-Texas). All three have voted against the annual defense policy bill in the past, but are they willing to kill the rule for debating it?

If the trio vote in lockstep in the Rules panel, they could doom the bill – but all three have more than two dozen amendments between them that they’d like to see get floor debate, so we expect the rule to advance. (All three of the conservatives can still vote no on the floor.)

What to watch: Most House Rank-and-file Republicans want to ensure that the defense bill, with its six-decade history of bipartisan support, doesn’t get too bogged down in hot-button amendments. The bill has a six-decade history of bipartisan support.

Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), whose district includes the world’s largest naval base, hinted Monday that she would encourage her Republican colleagues to bat down controversial amendments that can derail this.

“We need to get the NDAA passed,” Kiggans, a former Navy helicopter pilot, told reporters on Monday. “It’s not something to ever put at risk.”

Abortion debate looms: Perhaps the biggest roadblock to Kiggans’ goal is the simmering fight over the Pentagon’s policies governing service members who travel to get abortions. The House Armed Services panel didn’t touch the issue at the committee level and Katherine reports that committee leaders promised some members that they’d get to have a fight on the floor.

The big battle? Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) has an amendment (with nearly 50 cosponsors) that would roll back the travel policy, and he’s one of many Republicans with related proposals. They would be poison pills for many Democrats whose votes would likely be needed to pass the defense measure.

McCarthy’s squeeze: The speaker is once again trying to thread the needle: giving his most conservative colleagues what they want (scores of amendments on hot-button issues like abortion and, LGBTQ troops, diversity, etc.) without losing votes from too many GOP moderates and alienating the Democrats he needs.

GOOD MORNING! Welcome to Huddle, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Monday evening, July 10, when Washington, D.C. actually physically feels like a swamp.

SO WHAT CAN SCHUMER REALLY DO? Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has a mile-long to-do list for the rest of the summer, touching everything from rail safety to artificial intelligence. But the New Yorker told Huddle on Monday that his top floor priority for this month will be what much of the Hill expects: passing the annual defense authorization bill.

“I hope that we can move quickly on it here on the floor in July,” Schumer (D-N.Y.) of the National Defense Authorization Act, the text of which has yet to be filed in the Senate. (A spokesperson told Huddle the committee plans to file the NDAA as early as today but timing is subject to change). The House is taking up its own version of the NDAA this week, starting with a Rules Committee hearing on Tuesday.

A farm bill patch may be coming: Even if they can knock out the NDAA this month, which is hardly a guarantee, lawmakers have left a lot on their plate for September. Congress has lined up a deadline triple-header on Sept. 30, when government funding, the farm bill and authorization for the Federal Aviation Administration are all set to expire. There are just seven weeks left in session before then.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who chairs the Agriculture Committee, told Huddle she’s not concerned if the farm bill isn’t wrapped by Sept. 30 because lawmakers can pass a short-term extension. In fact, Stabenow is expecting that stopgap to happen, given how much appropriations are sucking up the legislative oxygen.

“If we’re not able to [pass a farm bill] by the end of September, we will have bipartisan consensus to” extend the previous version, Stabenow said. “I’ve been involved in six farm bills, this is the third one I’ve led on, and none of them have ever been able to be completed by this statutory deadline.”

Missing from Senate votes yesterday: Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Angus King (I-Maine), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska). The bipartisan group is in Vilnius for the NATO summit.

Seething over SCOTUS: The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote next week on a bill from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) to overhaul how the Supreme Court handles ethics and conflicts of interest.

The legislation – shaped after reporting on Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito’s ties to wealthy GOP donors – would require the adoption of a code of conduct, make justices explain recusal decisions and strengthen standards for disclosure of conflicts.

Artificial intelligence watch: Senators will have a second briefing on artificial intelligence, their first-ever classified one, at 3 p.m. today. Some high profile defense and intelligence folks are stopping by, including Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency Director Trey Whitworth, and the Pentagon’s chief digital and AI officer, Craig Martell.

Notable: A group of senators whose average age is 65.3 years clearly have lots of questions surrounding the power and influence of artificial intelligence. Whether the classified briefing gets them closer to a full understanding of that remains to be seen.

D.C. VS GOP

House Republicans are entering the next phase of their fraught relationship with the nation’s capital. And at the top of their targets list are the District’s voting laws.

What’s happening: Republicans on the Administration Committee are rolling out legislation that would rewrite D.C. voting rules. It’s not expected to pass in the Democratic-controlled Senate, but Republicans view the D.C.-based changes they are proposing as a “model” for what the party would like to see in states across the country.

Though the new bill does establish rules for states that allow non-citizens to vote in state and local elections, don’t expect Republicans to bring the same sweep of their D.C. efforts to the states.

That’s because the GOP sees a difference between mandatory changes to state laws — which they spent years bashing Democrats for proposing — and changes to laws in the capital, where Congress has enhanced constitutional oversight.

Republicans have taken smaller bites at D.C. voting laws already. But the bill, spearheaded by Administration Chair Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) would require voter ID, restrict ballot drop boxes and prohibit mail-in ballots except on request within the District, among other changes.

Top Democrats are already teeing off: Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) blasted the bill as “designed to appease extremist election deniers who have spent the last four years attacking our democracy.”

Elsewhere on the Hill, the Oversight Committee will vote on legislation on Wednesday to prohibit non-U.S. citizens from voting in D.C. The House previously voted to block a D.C. council bill allowing non-citizens to vote, but the Senate didn’t act within the window to block the legislation.

Not just voting: Republicans are also using House government funding bills to weigh in on everything from maintaining D.C.’s ban on marijuana legalization and blocking the city’s plans to make turning right on red lights illegal. All of those changes would need to survive negotiation with a Democratic-controlled Senate and the White House to make it into law.

NEWSMAKERS OF THE DAY

Who we’re watching today … The House is back soon, for the first time in two weeks, and there’s a handful of newsmakers – surprise, they’re all conservatives – who will likely be inundated with questions when they’re spotted in the hallways.

• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.): She has yet to confirm on the record whether she has been actually booted from the House Freedom Caucus.
• Those three Rules Committee Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), as we told you above.

Looks like some Democrats want Barbie on the Hill … Indo-Pacific geopolitics aren’t scaring off freshman Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) from making his pitch (on Twitter) for a “Barbie” movie viewing on Capitol Hill. His fellow first-term lawmaker tweeted back: “I’m in bro. Come on Barbie let’s go party….” (ICYMI: A Barbie girl living in China’s world?)

QUICK LINKS

A Capitol Police officer was arrested Monday by Maryland police for child pornography possession, from Nicholas

The Influencer Who Came to Congress, from Eric Cortellessa at Time Magazine

TRANSITIONS

Kleya Dhenin is now Director or Operations for Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.). She was most recently Director of Scheduling and Operations for Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Il.)

Katherine Truitt is now D.C. office manager for Rep. Brandon Williams (R-N.Y.). She is a former senior caseworker/constituent services representative for former Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.).

Dave Christie is now Chief of Staff for Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.). He was previously her legislative director.

TODAY IN CONGRESS

The House convenes at 2 p.m. for legislative business. First and last votes are expected at 6:30 p.m.

The Senate convenes at 10 a.m. with two votes at 11:30 a.m., one vote at 2:15 p.m. and three votes at 4:30 p.m.

AROUND THE HILL

4:45 p.m. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Republicans on the Energy & Commerce commerce committee are having a press conference on the status of their Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra investigation and NIH re-appointments. (HVC Studio A)

MONDAY’S WINNER: Patrick Pizzella correctly guessed that Ben Hernandez was the first Hispanic presidential candidate in 1984. He ran as a Republican and lost in the primary against incumbent President Ronald Reagan.

TODAY’S QUESTION from Patrick: Name the only GOP President to have voted for Franklin D. Roosevelt for president four times.

The first person to correctly guess gets a mention in the next edition of Huddle. Send your answers to [email protected].

GET HUDDLE emailed to your phone each morning.

Follow Daniella on Twitter @DaniellaMicaela