Hot Dish 5.28.24

By Sydney Kashiwagi

Welcome back from a long Memorial Day weekend. Hope you all enjoyed some time off and are ready to dig into DC Dish because we’ve got a lot to catch up on.

Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race had been quiet for months. Republicans could not find a formidable candidate to take on Sen. Amy Klobuchar until the end of January when retired Naval intelligence officer and political newcomer Joe Fraser entered the race. But now, it’s shaping up to be a colorful race after the state’s Republican Party made a surprise endorsement of former NBA player and InfoWars darling Royce White.

HIS PAST SPENDING: After a failed run for Congress in Minnesota two years ago, White’s fading campaign spent more than $1,200 in leftover funds at a nude strip club in Miami and more than $4,000 on limousine services in Florida and Georgia, my colleague Ryan Faircloth and I reported.

That wasn’t all the Republican’s campaign spent after he lost an early August primary election for Minnesota’s Fifth District. White’s campaign shelled out thousands more at high-end hotels in Tennessee and Georgia, and $970 at a Wisconsin Dells resort, according to his public federal campaign finance records.

His past is facing more scrutiny since his victory earlier this month when he overwhelmingly won the GOP endorsement with 67% of the vote on the first ballot.

In an interview Friday, White defended his previous campaign and its transactions, telling me they were “very modest.”

“Which charges are considered extravagant? Was it extravagant for Black Lives Matter to buy mansions? Was that extravagant? Is it extravagant for Ilhan Omar to have paid her own spouse $500,000 out of her campaign? Is that extravagant?” White said. “My campaign only raised $500,000 total, and I guarantee you, we didn’t spend it all at Bed Bath and Beyond.”

But campaign finance experts we spoke with said White’s 2022 campaign transactions are highly unusual and possibly criminal.

WHAT ABOUT JOE? Well, we don’t know. His campaign has declined to say if he will stay in the race and run in the August GOP primary with White. Both men have raised little money for a U.S. Senate race. Fraser has about $45,000 in the bank and White has just $10,000. But Fraser has until the June 4 filing deadline to decide whether he’s still running.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING IN DC: After the convention, NRSC Chairman Steve Daines said last week he does not think White can win in the general election or the primary but would not say if he would back him if he wins the primary. Daines told me last week he has not had a conversation with Fraser about continuing in the race, but did not close the door on the possibility of pushing him to do so.

“We’re looking to support candidates who win primaries and general elections so we’ll see what happens here,” Daines said.

Following the convention, but before White’s past FEC filings came to light, GOP Reps. Tom Emmer and Pete Stauber both said they would be willing to sit down and meet White.

“I’ll probably sit down with him at some point,” Emmer said of White. “He’s very articulate. He’s very passionate. There’s a reason why he was endorsed.” But neither would say at the time if he thought Fraser should run in the primary.

GEORGE FLOYD: Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee reintroduced the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act last week ahead of the four-year anniversary of the police killing of George Floyd.

Jackson Lee’s bill has passed the House twice but stalled in the Senate, even as President Joe Biden has been pressing Congress to pass the legislation. Minnesota Reps. Ilhan Omar and Betty McCollum, co-sponsors of the bill, both called on Congress to pass it.

The reintroduction of the bill came ahead of hundreds gathering in Minneapolis Friday for a day of remembrance hosted by the nonprofit Win Back to honor Floyd, my colleague Maya Rao reported. Saturday was the four-year anniversary of Floyd’s death at the hands of police at the corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, igniting global race justice protests.

DIGITAL CURRENCY: The U.S. House passed Emmer’s CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act last week in a 216-192 vote. The bill would stop the Federal Reserve from issuing central bank digital currency, otherwise known as CBDCs, without first getting authorization from Congress.

Countries including China, Russia, Brazil, India and the European Union are in the process of developing CBDCs that their central banks would control, with China having the world’s largest pilot program, according to the think tank Atlantic Council.

Emmer has sounded the alarms on the ability of the government to control and monitor people’s spending if CBDCs are issued without any oversight and has cited China’s use of CBDCs as proof that they can be used as surveillance tools.

“My legislation ensures that the United States’ digital currency policy remains in the hands of the American people so that any development of digital money reflects our values of privacy, individual sovereignty, and free market competitiveness,” Emmer said in a statement following the bill’s passage. “This is what the future global digital economy needs.”

The bill was passed largely along party lines. Minnesota’s four Democrats in Congress voted against the bill and all four Republican members voted for it. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has a companion bill in the Senate but it’s unclear if it will be scheduled for a vote.

FARM BILL: The House Agriculture Committee passed the $1.5 trillion, 1,000-page Farm Bill after 12 hours of debate in a 33-21 vote, largely along party lines, my colleague Christopher Vondracek reported.

The bill, which Republican Ag Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson of Pennsylvania authored, faces an uphill climb to advance without more Democratic buy-in, especially in the U.S. Senate. Minnesotans on the committee were divided on the bill’s provisions.

The farm bill, initially set to expire in September 2023, earned a yearlong extension from Congress and the Biden Administration. Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, the Senate Ag chairwoman, has released a blueprint for her bill, but has not yet announced a mark-up.

GOP Rep. Brad Finstad — who represents a large swath of southern Minnesota encompassing corn and soybean farmers, pork producers and dairies — touted federal investments in production agriculture programs, including a provision that would nullify a California hog welfare law that has upset pig farmers in the upper Midwest. Finstad said the bill represents the “priorities of farmers in southern Minnesota” and not “D.C. bureaucrats.”

But Democratic Rep. Angie Craig, whose swing district is split between suburbs and cornfields, voted against the legislation and called it a “partisan” bill.

“Unfortunately, the bill the majority has presented us today ignores the political realities of this Congress and the needs of the farmers I represent,” said Craig, knocking the measure for favoring “southern commodities at the expense of Midwest row crops.”

GOP TAKES NOTICE: Craig is in a competitive race and the National Republican Congressional Committee quickly took notice of her vote, which the committee said was in lockstep with her party rather than following the wishes of the farmers in her district.

“Angie Craig is all hat and no cattle when it comes to sticking up for Minnesotans. Farmers and families can’t put all their eggs in Angie Craig’s basket and expect her to come through for them. Craig will be answering for this shameful partisan vote ‘til the cows come home this November,” NRCC Spokesman Mike Marinella said in a statement.

WHERE’S WALZ:

The governor and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan hold a ceremonial bill signing at 10:15 a.m. on legislation keeping rideshare services in Minnesota while also raising driver pay.

READING LIST

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