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Furor Over Russia's Hacking Puts Congressional Republicans on Hot Seat Wall Street Journal (subscription) In the controversy over Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, here's where the key players stand: Russian President Vladimir Putin must be pleased, President Donald Trump is furious, and congressional Republicans are in the hot seat. House Republicans Shouldn't Get Too Comfortable in MajorityRoll Call all 7 news articles »

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Furor Over Russia's Hacking Puts Congressional Republicans on Hot Seat - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker offered some limited praise of the new plan. | AP Photo

President Donald Trump's scaled-back order restricting travel from six majority-Muslim nations won over one of his biggest GOP critics Monday, even as few other Republicans rushed to endorse the plan.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has hounded Trump on his ties to Russia and called the presidents first attempt at a travel ban a potential self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism," embraced the White House's changes.

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This executive order will achieve the goal of protecting our homeland and will, in my view, pass legal muster, the South Carolina Republican said in a statement, adding that "the new order will withstand legal challenges as its drafted in a fashion as to not be a religious ban, but a ban on individuals coming from compromised governments and failed states."

But Graham, so far, appears to be the only convert. Other Republicans who had criticized the first travel order issued in January and quickly halted in federal court offered few words of support. Graham and Sen. John McCain had criticized Trumps first travel order in a joint statement, but Grahams support, notably, came in a solo press release.

McCain later tweeted that Iraq was not included in the new executive order and that Iraqis are our allies in the fight against #ISIL. Removing Iraqi citizens from the travel ban came after entreaties from Graham, McCain and other prominent Republicans including Trump's secretary of state and defense secretary in light of Iraqis contributions to the fight against terrorism.

Other top Republicans were noticeably reticent to offer full-throated support for the new order. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, who criticized Trumps January travel ban, offered some limited praise, at least for the roll-out of the new plan.

I am very encouraged by the interagency approach the administration has taken to develop and implement the revised executive order, said Corker, adding that he was pleased that Iraq was removed from the countries subject to visa restrictions. The Tennessee Republican also said reviewing the nations screening and vetting procedures is an appropriate step and that he is hopeful these programs will then be reinstated.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer emphasized Monday that the new travel order is based on the same principles that guided the first but this time, he said, all stakeholders, including lawmakers, were extensively briefed on the contents.

"We made sure that everybody knew what we were doing," he said, adding, "I think we did a phenomenal job of rolling it out."

But the White Houses engagement didnt immediately draw an outpouring of support from the presidents allies on Capitol Hill.

House Republicans, in particular, appeared to be reserving judgment, offering sparse cover to a president who sprung his first travel ban on them with little warning, stoking turmoil and energizing grassroots Trump opponents. The relative silence was notable given the Trump administration's apparent confidence that the communication problems plaguing the execution of its initial immigration order had been fixed this time around.

"There should be no surprises whether it's in the media or on Capitol Hill," Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told reporters at a press briefing on the order, after which no questions were taken.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) was a notable exception to the GOPs reticence, offering a quick endorsement of Trumps new plan.

This revised executive order advances our shared goal of protecting the homeland, said Ryan, who criticized the rollout of Trumps initial travel ban. I commend the administration and Secretary Kelly in particular for their hard work on this measure to improve our vetting standards.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) also signaled support.

Backing for Trump among Republicans was slightly more robust in the Senate.

The new immigration order also excised language from Trump's first version, which signaled a preference for refugee applications from Christians residing in majority-Muslim countries and would not affect existing visa holders, a tweak welcomed by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

That change "should ensure the unintended consequences from the last order do not reoccur," Grassley said in a statement.

Other elements of Trump's initial immigration order, including a 120-day pause in the admission of refugees from around the world and a deep cut in the number of refugees admitted during the current year, remain intact.

Inquiries with a slew of moderate Republican lawmakers who had expressed concerns about Trumps first travel order were not immediately returned.

Meanwhile top Democrats quickly condemned the new immigration limits as little more than a warmed-over regurgitation of Trump's original travel ban, a hastily rolled-out plan that faltered in federal court and provoked mass protests at international airports across the country. They continued to refer to the effort as a Muslim ban, and they were emboldened further when Spicer told reporters Monday that the principles of the executive order remain the same."

A watered-down ban is still a ban," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. "Despite the administrations changes, this dangerous executive order makes us less safe, not more, it is mean-spirited, and un-American."

Newly elected Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), who called for stricter evaluation of the refugee screening process on the campaign trail in 2015, on Monday slammed Trump's order as "a backdoor Muslim ban" and "immoral," respectively.

A few conservatives who backed Trump's earlier order offered early praise for the revised edition. Arizona GOP Rep. Paul Gosar called it refreshing to see a President that isnt ashamed to uphold the most important job of the government ... protecting the American people.

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Republicans in no rush to back Trump's new travel ban - Politico

Speaker Paul Ryan, right, and his House Republicans are reportedly planning to introduce its Obamacare replacement bill this week.

Congressional Republicans will introduce their much-anticipated bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act this week, NBC News reports, citing a senior House aide.

Draft legislation would provide expanded tax credits and health savings accounts for individuals, while cutting spending on tax subsidies and Medicaid, NBC writes. It would also practically eliminate the employer and individuals mandates to provide and carry health insurance. That legislation may have changed but a House Republican aide earlier called it the bones of what would happen.

Also read: Trump embraces HSAs as a pillar of repeal and replace, but they will need work.

SEC nominee targeted: A coalition of progressive groups is planning to announce a campaign to derail President Trumps nomination of Jay Clayton to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Washington Post reports. Organizers say the campaign will include a six-figure digital advertising buy. As the Post says, it comes amid broader efforts by Democrats to highlight Trumps choice of finance-industry insiders for key administration positions despite his antiWall Street rhetoric when he was a candidate.

Knives out for Priebus: Politico writes that administration officials are increasingly putting blame on Trumps chief of staff, Reince Priebus, as the White House struggles to gain its footing nearly two months into the new presidency. More than a dozen Trump aides, allies and others close to the White House said Priebus was becoming a singular target of criticism within the White House.

One senior administration official said theres a real frustration among many, including Trump himself, that things arent going as smoothly as hoped for. The White House, meanwhile, pushed back on the story, with Trump chief strategist Stephen Bannon saying the presidents agenda is being implemented in record time, which shows you what a great job Reince is doing.

Also see: Opinion: With wiretapping tweets, Trump undermines the presidency.

Regulation tally: Federal agencies and the GOP-led Congress have delayed, suspended or reversed more than 90 regulations in the month and a half since Trump took office, according to a tally by the New York Times. The Times called the effort one of the most significant shifts in regulatory policy in recent decades, with dozens more rules possibly being eliminated in the coming weeks.

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Republicans to introduce health bill this week | Knives out for Reince Priebus, Trump's chief of staff - MarketWatch

President Trump and congressional Republicans are poised to roll back a series of Obama-era worker safety regulations targeted by business groups, starting with a rule that would require federal contractors to disclose and correct serious safety violations.

The Senate is set to vote Monday evening to eliminate the regulation, dubbed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule. Finalized in August and blocked by a court order in October, the rule would limit the ability of companies with recent safety problems to complete for government contracts unless they agreed to remedies.

The measure to abolish it has already cleared the House. The next step after the Senate vote would be the White House, where Trump is expected to sign it.

A half-dozen other worker safety regulations are also in Republican crosshairs, with one headed to the Senate floor as soon as this week. Many are directed at companies with federal contracts. Such companies employ 1 in 5 American workers meaning the effort could have wide-ranging effects.

This is the opening salvo of the Republicans war on workers, said Deborah Berkowitz, who was a senior policy adviser at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration when many of the regulations were crafted. It sends a signal that Congress and the administration is listening to big business and their lobbyists and they are not standing up for the interests of the American workers.

[Federal Insider: Fair-pay order for contractors under attack in Congress]

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and other leading business groups have urged Congress and the Trump administration to eliminate the regulations, arguing that they discourage businesses from competing for government contracts, thereby reducing jobs.

This is the same old playbook from the left that never changes, said Randy Johnson, the Chambers senior vice president for labor, immigration and employee benefits. Any changes in employment laws proposed by the employer community is disingenuously described as an attack on workers. The left has never seen a regulation they dont like, no matter how many jobs it kills.

Hours before the Senate vote on the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released a staff report that says that 66 of the federal governments 100 largest contractors have at some point violated federal wage and hour laws. Since 2015, the report says, more than a third of the 100 largest OSHA penalties have been imposed on federal contractors.

Too often, federal contractors break labor laws while continuing to suck down millions in taxpayer dollars, Warren said in a statement.

[Hill Republicans move to scrap Obama-era regulations]

That concern prompted the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces regulation. Among the strongest data points: Rodney Bridgett, 37, a worker at a Tysons Foods beef processing plant in Nebraska, was crushed by a piece of heavy equipment when a chain snapped on the plants kill floor in 2012.

Tyson spokesman Worth Sparkman called Bridgetts death a tragic accident and said the company aspires to have zero work-related injuries and illnesses, and continue to improve our culture related to safety every day.

OSHA investigators found that Tysons supervisors had repeatedly failed to inspect the faulty chain. While OSHA sought to fine the company, the Obama administration moved separately to target a major source of Tysonss revenue: nearly $300million a year in federal contracts.

The Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces regulation was finalized in August. Days later, the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) sued, securing a temporary injunction that prohibited the federal government from implementing it.

ABC and other business groups objected to the rules requirement that companies disclose citations for alleged safety violations that they are still challenging.

They define violations to include mere allegations and citations where the contractors havent had a chance to defend them, said Marc Freedman, executive director of labor law policy with the Chamber. We consider this a violation of their constitutional due-process rights.

David Madland of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, said the rule applies only to companies with contracts worth $500,000 or more. If the rule is eliminated, he said, taxpayers will lose alongside affected workers. One purpose of the rule was to make it easier for federal agencies to identify contractors who were not honest brokers when it came to employee pay.

People who rip off workers rip off the government, Madland said.

After Trumps election, the Chamber and other business groups added the rule to wish lists for regulations they wanted to see eliminated. Republican lawmakers quickly identified a tool to assist in those efforts the rarely used Congressional Review Act (CRA). Approved in 1996, the law had been used only once to kill a worker safety rule that would have forced companies to alter their workstations or change tools and equipment if their employees suffered work-related repetitive-stress injuries.

The CRA allows Congress to roll back recently enacted regulations by a simple majority vote. Once a rule is killed, it is killed forever. No future administration can pass a similar measure unless Congress is persuaded to pass a law instead a far more difficult task.

Reps. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) and Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) are leading the charge to kill Labor Department regulations using the CRA. In addition to the effort to eliminate the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces regulation called the blacklisting rule by the Chamber and many Republican lawmakers Byrne introduced a measure to quash a regulation called the Volks rule.

Adopted in January, the rule responds to a 2012 D.C. Court of Appeals decision Volks Constructors v. Secretary of Labor that limited OSHAs power to issue citations for record-keeping violations older than six months. The new rule gives OSHA authority to issue citations and levy fines against companies for failure to record illnesses, injuries and deaths that date back as far as five years.

Last week, the House voted to kill the Volks rule. If the measure clears the Senate, Trump is expected to sign it.

Byrne said he does not think OSHA needs the Volks rule. If you are determined to be a bad actor, youll be a bad actor, he said. I dont think this is going to encourage noncompliance. I think that OSHA is being lazy on getting its investigations done.

Byrne also called the rule an overreach, saying the changes should have been made in law, not through regulation.

Rep. Robert C. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) is leading efforts to block the rule-killing measures. He argues that Byrnes measure to kill the Volks rule will block OSHAs enforcement efforts and create a safe harbor for those employers who deliberately underreport.

OSHA says staffing levels permit investigators to visit an American business roughly once every 140 years, unless a serious violation is reported.

Scott also defended the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule, saying that nothing in the regulation would ban a company from securing a federal contract. He noted that only companies with serious, pervasive, intentional and repeated safety violations would have to report them.

Who qualifies for that who we need to help? Scott said. If you can save money by underpaying your workers and violating OSHA, why should you have a competitive advantage over those who are complying with the law?

Leaders on both sides of the battle hold key committee assignments and have close financial ties with the constituencies they are championing. Foxx and Byrne received hundreds of thousands in donations for their 2016 reelection campaigns from employees of federal contractors and their trade groups, including ones that have been at the forefront of efforts to kill the two worker safety rules. Foxx received $7,500 from employees of ABC, while Byrne received $10,000 from ABC employees.

Scott, meanwhile, is a long-standing champion of unions and civil rights groups who are in favor of the keeping the Obama-era rules. During Scotts 2016 reelection campaign, more than half of his donations came from union employees, including $10,000 from the United Steelworkers and $30,000 from the United Food and Commercial Workers union, according to records maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Alice Crites contributed to this report.

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Republicans poised to roll back worker safety regulations - Washington Post

House Republicans, despite stiff political headwinds, are readying an ambitious push this week to begin moving legislation to replace major parts of the Affordable Care Act, a crucial test of their ability to fulfill one of their partys main campaign promises.

The plan marks the first time GOP lawmakers will do this since Obamacare was enacted seven years ago and will provide an early indication of whether President Trump can rally his partys members of Congress, many of whom are anxious about how to repeal and replace the healthcare law.

The legislation could affect health insurance for tens of millions of Americans not only those with Obamacare coverage, but also people with employer-provided insurance and Medicaid.

The House legislation which was being finalized over the weekend, according to GOP officials aims to fundamentally restructure the system that Obamacare created, which has extended health coverage to more than 20 million previously uninsured Americans.

GOP plans call for scrapping insurance marketplaces that require insurers to offer a basic set of benefits and that provide government subsidies to help low- and moderate-income Americans who dont get health benefits at work to buy health plans.

Republican legislation would lift many requirements for benefits that plans must cover. And it would create a new system of subsidies that are linked to consumers age, rather than their income, according to leaked drafts. That would make insurance harder to buy for millions of Americans, especially low-income working people, outside analyses suggest.

GOP leaders would eliminate taxes that have helped offset the cost of Obamacares coverage expansion, including taxes on medical device makers and insurance companies and on households making more than $250,000 a year.

Instead, Republicans are proposing to tax the health insurance that employers provide their workers. Employer-provided benefits are currently tax-free. The change could cause the price of insurance that many Americans get on the job to go up.

The House plan would phase out hundreds of billions of dollars in federal aid that has allowed many states to expand their Medicaid programs to millions more poor Americans.

House Republicans also want to give states more flexibility to reshape their Medicaid programs, allowing states to potentially limit benefits or require poor patients to pay more for their medical care.

The GOP plan would eliminate Obamacares unpopular insurance mandate, which requires Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty.

In its place, House Republicans have proposed to allow insurers to charge higher premiums to Americans who let their insurance lapse.

Most of these proposals are deeply controversial, even within Republican ranks. That is a big reason why Republicans have not previously moved forward with a plan to replace Obamacare.

"There is not a consensus at this point," Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Sunday on CBS News Face the Nation.

White House officials and senior GOP lawmakers nevertheless are sounding upbeat.

We're putting the finishing touches on our plan, Vice President Mike Pence said in Wisconsin on Friday on a trip with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price to visit House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in his district.

And House Ways and Means Committee chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas), whose committee could hold a hearing on proposed legislation as soon as this week, said hes confident the president is behind the House plan. There was no mistaking he is exactly on the same page as House Republicans, Brady said.

Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have suggested Congress could send President Trump legislation as soon as this month, even though Republican leaders as of Sunday had still not released the text of their healthcare legislation.

Obamacare 101: A periodic primer on the Affordable Care Act

While the Republican-led Congress did pass a bill to repeal large parts of Obamacare, which President Obama vetoed last year, this marks the first time the party will offer a replacement bill and subject it to the scrutiny of congressional hearings and the legislative process.

But the GOP faces mounting opposition from major advocacy groups representing patients, doctors, hospitals and now even businesses, a traditional Republican ally.

At the same time, internal GOP divisions threaten to derail the legislative campaign before it even gets off the ground.

Leading conservatives in the House and Senate have said they will oppose any legislation that does not fully repeal Obamacare, while many Republican senators and governors representing states with major coverage gains have voiced serious reservations about rolling back too much of the existing law.

Conservatives have criticized the House GOP plan as Obamacare-lite, accusing party leaders of replacing one tax-funded government entitlement with another.

Theyre going to have a new tax, a new government subsidy program and a new [insurance] mandate, charged Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has rallied against the plan with the conservative House Freedom Caucus and influential outside groups such as Heritage Action and the Club for Growth.

Speaker Ryan and Leader McConnell need to stand up to those in the Republican Party who are fighting to retain and repair Obamacare, rather than repeal and replace it, said David McIntosh, president of the free market advocacy group Club for Growth, which is known for backing primary election challenges to wayward Republicans.

Together, the conservatives have the votes to potentially tank the House GOP plan because to pass any healthcare legislation, Republican leaders cannot afford to lose more than 18 votes in the House.

Their margins, especially in the Senate, but also in the House, are thin, warned National Retail Federation vice president Neil Trautwein, a former aid to McConnell.

They have a better chance of getting this out of the House, but its not automatic, even though they are taking draconian steps to get their caucus in line. And what they are doing with this secrecy and locked rooms isnt helping.

House Republican leaders came under fire last week for only allowing committee members to view drafts of proposed healthcare legislation in a first-floor room of the Capitol that was off limits to Democrats and even Senate Republicans.

Many advocacy organizations are urging House Republicans to slow down and allow more time for independent assessments of the legislation.

To date, the independent Congressional Budget Office, which lawmakers rely on to calculate the effect of proposed bills, has not released an estimate of how much Republicans plans would cost and how many people could lose health coverage.

Making substantial changes to our healthcare system by changing current law would impact tens of millions of our patients, Dr. Nitin S. Damle, president of the American College of Physicians, said in a letter to House committee leaders last week.

Congress therefore must avoid any unintended adverse consequences, the letter said, calling for an open and transparent legislative process.

Under the current GOP plan, the House Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means committees are expected to hold hearings on different pieces of the legislation as soon as this week.

That could allow the full House to vote on an Obamacare repeal bill by as early as the end of the month and send it to the Senate, where a much longer debate is expected.

John Desser, a former health official in the George W. Bush administration and former aide to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), predicted Ryan would rally his caucus and get the 218 votes hell need.

The speaker has lived and breathed health policy for over two decades, and may just be perfectly positioned to bring together his conference and explain the opportunity they have to get this right to reluctant or recalcitrant members, he said.

But Desser, now a vice president for eHealth, an online insurance marketplace, cautioned that other challenges await.

Getting it through the Senate after that may require the gravity-defying leadership of Mr. Trump and his team, he said.

noam.levey@latimes.com

@noamlevey

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Facing big political hurdles, House Republicans ready an ambitious legislative push to repeal Obamacare - Los Angeles Times