SUCCESSION REDUX: “George Soros, the legendary investor, philanthropist and right-wing target, is handing control of his $25 billion empire to a younger son — Alexander Soros, a self-described center-left thinker who grew up self-conscious of the family’s wealth and wasn’t thought to be a potential successor,” The Wall Street Journal’s Gregory Zuckerman reports. — “The 37-year-old, who goes by Alex, said in the first interview since his selection that he was broadening his father’s liberal aims—’We think alike,’ the elder Soros said—while embracing some different causes. Those include voting and abortion rights, as well as gender equity. He plans to continue using the family’s deep pockets to back left-leaning U.S. politicians.” — “The Soros’s nonprofit Open Society Foundations, known as OSF, directs about $1.5 billion a year to groups such as those backing human rights around the world and helping build democracies. Foundation money also goes to universities and other educational organizations. The Soros super PAC, Democracy PAC, has backed the election campaigns of district attorneys and law-enforcement officials seeking to reduce incarceration rates and racial bias in the justice system, among the efforts that have riled the right.” — Alex Soros, who described himself to the Journal as “more political” than his father, told the paper “he was concerned about the prospect of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, suggesting a significant financial role for the Soros organization in the 2024 presidential race. ‘As much as I would love to get money out of politics, as long as the other side is doing it, we will have to do it, too,’ he said in an interview at the fund manager’s New York offices.” ANDERSON MOVES TO HERITAGE SUPER PAC FULL TIME: Jessica Anderson will take a leave of absence from her role as executive director of the Heritage Foundation’s advocacy arm, Heritage Action, to turn her attention to heading up the super PAC Sentinel Action Fund ahead of next year’s elections. — Anderson has served as president of the super PAC, which Heritage Action launched last year to marshal the conservative grassroots ahead of the midterms, since its outset. But beginning in July she’ll turn to that role full-time, looking to build on the super PAC’s $14 million in spending from last cycle. — “The Sentinel Action Fund will now fill existing operational gaps this campaign cycle,” Anderson said in a statement, which she said will include “instituting a permanent GOTV/ground game infrastructure” as well as “chasing ballots to the fullest extent of the law, early voter engagement, voter registration, ballot harvesting, and grassroots GOTV.” Heritage Action’s vice president of government relations, Ryan Walker, will serve as acting executive director. PROGRESSIVE GROUPS LAUNCH SEVEN-FIGURE SCOTUS PUSH: “A group of Democratic-aligned organizations are teaming up on seven-figure campaign to elevate the importance of the Supreme Court in the 2024 election cycle,” NBC News’ Adam Edelman reports. — “The campaign — called United for Democracy — will kick off Monday with a $1 million ad buy in five states with pivotal Senate races next year, highlighting how a raft of recent Supreme Court decisions rolling back reproductive rights, union protections and gun and environmental regulations has impacted Americans.” — “Groups involved with the campaign include Planned Parenthood, NARAL, Giffords, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association and the League of Conservation Voters. Several of the groups will each devote funds and personnel for the campaign.” — “The group’s first ads will air Monday in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada and Montana,” states where Democrats will be defending Senate seats, as well as D.C. “Campaign organizers say their goal is to spotlight to voters that the Supreme Court has had a major impact on their lives — and that those voters wield political power that can be used to help mold the court’s future. Ads will also run in print and online newspapers in those states.” IF YOU MISSED IT FRIDAY: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is challenging the Biden administration’s authority to negotiate drug prices under last year’s reconciliation bill, a legal provocation that came days after the drugmaker Merck sued to block the program last week. — “In a complaint filed in federal court in Dayton, Ohio, the chamber said the pricing program violated drugmakers' due process rights under the U.S. Constitution by giving the government "unfettered discretion" to dictate maximum prices,” Reuters’ Jonathan Stempel writes. “It also said the program would impose exorbitant penalties on drugmakers that don't accept those prices, and amounted to an ultimatum: ‘agree to whatever price the government names, or we'll smash up your business.’” — An HHS spokesperson “said the agency will vigorously defend the program, which is already helping lower healthcare costs for older adults and people with disabilities. ‘The law is on our side,’ she added.” Neil Bradley, the Chamber’s top lobbyist, warned against the precedent the drug pricing program would set. “After all, if the government can impose price controls in the pharmaceutical industry, why not elsewhere?” he said in a statement. FLY-IN SZN: The American Cleaning Institute is bringing leading cleaning product makers and suppliers — including SC Johnson, Clorox, Procter & Gamble and Reckitt — to the Hill on Wednesday to push for a national labeling standard for cleaning product ingredients. — They’re set to meet with members and staff for Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.), Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), and several other lawmakers, in addition to the offices of Congressional Chemistry Caucus members Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.), Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). — There will be more than 120 nurses, caregivers, patients and oncologists hitting Capitol Hill tomorrow as part of the Community Oncology Alliance's advocacy day. They've got hundreds of meetings scheduled with lawmakers and congressional staff, pushing for policies that would crack down on pharmaceutical middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers. — Another group of patients with chronic disease and their caregivers with Patients Rising Now and We the Patients will be on the Hill tomorrow as well to push for legislation to lower copays and to rein in PBMs. They’re set to meet with the offices of Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and more.
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