GOOD EVENING! Welcome to Inside Congress, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Monday, March 11, where we’re wondering which other lawmakers “Saturday Night Live” will make Scarlett Johansson play next. DEMS HAVE AN IVF-CENTRIC RETREAT PREVIEW FOR HOUSE GOP House Republicans are headed to their annual retreat in West Virginia in just a couple of days. But Democrats are already trying to turn the GOP’s guest speakers into a political liability. Among the visitors Republicans will hear from at the Greenbrier during their confab this week: Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony List, a conservative anti-abortion group, and Jeanne Marcini of the anti-abortion March for Life. The decision to invite the staunchly anti-abortion speakers to the retreat, organized by GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, comes as several vulnerable House Republicans are getting behind symbolic House resolutions that would protect in vitro fertilization after Alabama’s Supreme Court ruling that cast uncertainty on in-state use of the fertility technology. (Susan B. Anthony has lauded the Alabama decision, per NBC News, but contended that preservation of embryos created by IVF should not preclude its use.) Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Nebeyatt Betre slammed the House GOP’s decision to invite anti-abortion group leaders. “House Republicans still don’t get it. Instead of listening to voters, these so-called moderate House Republicans are taking advice from the far-right fringe of the anti-choice movement on how to ‘message’ their out of touch agenda,” Betre said. The National Republican Congressional Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The swing-seat Republicans facing tough questions from their constituents on supporting IVF include Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.), Michelle Steel (R-Calif.) and Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.). (If you need a refresher on which Republican lawmakers are facing tough reelections across the map, we got you.) — Daniella Diaz CONGRESS’ COLA FIGHT HITS THE COURTS A lawsuit recently filed by current and former members of Congress wades fully into one of Capitol Hill’s most controversial internal issues: how much lawmakers are paid. Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), alongside former Reps. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), Thomas M. Davis (R-Va.) and Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) has filed a lawsuit alleging that their pay was unconstitutionally adjusted when Congress itself repeatedly opted out of annual cost-of-living increases that are provided for under law. The class action lawsuit alleges that they are “suffering the unconstitutional suppression of their member pay, and the former Members continue to suffer the unconstitutional reduction of the retirement pay due them by law.” All three former members filing the suit now work for government relations or lobbying firms and are spotted on Capitol Hill with regularity. Key basics: The 27th Amendment blocks officials from “varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives” between elections. And since 2009, salaries for rank-and-file members of Congress have stayed frozen at $174,000 per year. Attempts to reinstate cost-of-living increases have been hotly debated in Congress but ultimately unsuccessful in recent years. The plaintiffs allege that for 21 years since COLAs were codified, members of Congress have been denied cost-of-living increases – in other words, that each time Congress enacted legislation to deny lawmakers COLAs (or in 2008 when President George W Bush suppressed COLAs for federal workers and Congress), that amounted to a violation of the 27th Amendment. The lawsuit alleges that each plaintiff was “unconstitutionally underpaid” by
- $563,800 for Rodney Davis
- $268,839 for Tom Davis
- $753,300 for Ed Perlmutter
- An undetermined amount for Crawford, since he is still serving.
The class action nature of the filing means that nearly 1,800 current and former members who have served since Jan. 1, 1994, could be eligible to join the suit.
Ken Cuccinelli, the former Virginia attorney general and Trump-era acting deputy homeland security secretary, is representing the four plaintiffs in the suit. “Congress has almost thoughtlessly in many respects, and unconstitutionally suppressed those cost of living adjustments and they have debased the institution … and they've made it harder and harder to get better participants,” he said in an interview. — Katherine Tully-McManus
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