Wake Up To Politics - March 22, 2021
Good morning! It’s Monday, March 22, 2021. Election Day 2022 is 596 days away. Election Day 2024 is 1,324 days away.
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The Rundown
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Daybook
All times Eastern.
Executive Branch
President Joe Biden will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 9:50 a.m. Later, at 7 p.m., he will meet virtually with the Senate Democratic Caucus as part of their annual retreat.
Vice President Kamala Harris will ceremonially swear in Isabella Casillas Guzman as Administrator of the Small Business Administration at 9:30 a.m. She will then join Biden for the President’s Daily Brief before traveling to Jacksonville, Florida. At 2:25 p.m., she will visit a vaccination center in Jacksonville. At 3:20 p.m., she will participate in a listening session at a local food pantry. Harris will then return to Washington, D.C.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is traveling to Brussels, Belgium.
U.S. public health officials will hold a press briefing at 11 a.m. on COVID-19 response. The briefers will include Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical advisor; Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director; and Andy Slavitt, the White House senior advisor for COVID-19 response.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki will hold a press briefing at 12:30 p.m.
Legislative Branch
The Senate will convene at 3 p.m. The session will begin with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by the swearing-in of Karen Gibson as Senate Sergeant at Arms and remarks from the two Leaders. The chamber will then resume consideration of the nomination of Boston Mayor Marty Walsh to be Secretary of Labor. The Senate will vote at 5:30 p.m. on Walsh’s confirmation; he will be the final member of Biden’s Cabinet to be approved by the Senate.
The House will convene at 11 a.m. for a brief pro forma session.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee will hold a hearing at 11 a.m. on H.R. 51, which would admit Washington, D.C., as the 51st state, an issue gaining momentum on the Democratic side. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser will testify in support of the measure.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing at 11 a.m. on H.R. 1848, a $312 billion infrastructure proposal known as the LIFT America Act. Former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and former CDC Director Tom Frieden will testify.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will receive a closed briefing at 6 p.m. on the policy and legal rationale behind the U.S. airstrikes in Syria last month. Democratic senators had previously expressed frustration that they had yet to be briefed.
Judicial Branch
The Supreme Court will release orders at 9:30 a.m. The justices will then hear oral arguments at 11 a.m. in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, a dispute between landowners and labor.
“On one side, a pair of California farmers argue that union organizers shouldn’t be allowed to enter their strawberry fields to recruit workers,” WUTP legal contributor Anna Salvatore writes. “They claim that the organizers are unconstitutionally taking their property, although both the district court and the 9th Circuit have rejected this idea. On the other side, the unions argue that because they aren’t permanently occupying the farmers’ land, they are not ‘taking’ the land in any way that would violate the Fifth Amendment.”
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