Power Up: Biden administration’s messaging on the she-cession could be critical in 2022

President Biden called out women’s outsize role even the pandemic erases “decades of women’s economic gains” – and noted that coronavirus is “hitting the poorest and most marginalized women the hardest.” And Kamala D. Harris used her perch as the first female vice president to make the case to build  “a world that works for women,” from health care to jobs to human rights, in a speech before the European Parliament.  

Eyes on the midterms: The administration is pitching its early victory of the Senate passing the bill as an opportunity to help both unemployed and working women — whose support will be key to the electoral fortunes of Democrats in 2022.  

• “This is an easy plan to sell,” John Anzalone, Biden’s 2020 campaign pollster, told Power Up, “But there are specific provisions that people don’t know about, like the child tax credit, money for school reopening, and health care … women have had the brunt of dealing with everything — there’s a lot in here for them to like.”
• Remember: Women backed Biden more than Donald Trump in 2020 — but expectations for an overwhelming repudiation of the former president did not materialize. Black and Latina women supported the Biden-Harris ticket overwhelmingly, exit polls suggested, but Trump had a modest advantage among White women and a much wider share of White women without college degrees, per the Associated Press.

WHAT MIGHT RESONATE: Biden’s relief plan sets aside nearly $170 billion for education funding as schools grapple with returning to normalcy as more Americans become vaccinated. The package also includes “a massive one-year increase to the Child Tax Credit,” per our colleague Alyssa Fowers. “The expansion could benefit as many as 83 million children and reduce the number of children living in poverty by more than 40 percent, at least temporarily.”

• “Though framed in technocratic terms as an expansion of an existing tax credit, it is essentially a guaranteed income for families with children, akin to children’s allowances that are common in other rich countries,” the New York Times’s Jason DeParle reports.
• The bill “raises the maximum benefit most families will receive by up to 80 percent per child and extends it to millions of families whose earnings are too low to fully qualify under existing law. Currently, a quarter of children get a partial benefit, and the poorest 10 percent get nothing,” per DeParle.

And the package also fulfill ones of Biden’s central campaign promises “to fill the holes in the Affordable Care Act and make health insurance affordable for more than a million middle-class Americans who could not afford insurance under the original law,” the New York Times’s Sheryl Gay Stolberg notes.  

• “For people that are eligible but not buying insurance it’s a financial issue, and so upping the subsidies is going to make the price point come down,” Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy expert and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told Stolberg. “The bill, he said, would ‘make a big dent in the number of the uninsured.’”

The changes to the health care system, however, will only last for two years — and it will once again be a central issue in the 2022 midterms. 

The bill could also give Democrats ammunition to push back on Republicans who are hammering them over persistent school closures. 

• “This is a significant amount of money … We think that it gets much closer to addressing the needs of schools than the previous relief packages have,” Terra Wallin, the associate director for P-12 accountability and special projects at EdTrust, an organization that focuses on education equity, told MarketWatch’s Jillian Berman. 
• “The bill also provides guard rails to ensure that the funding for students who likely have been hardest by the challenges of remote school — those from underserved communities, including low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities and others — is protected, Wallin said.”

THE TIMELINE: Biden is expected to sign the American Rescue Package into law this week as House lawmakers may vote on the legislation as soon as today, per our colleagues Tony Romm and Jeff Stein.

• “A vote could happen Tuesday or perhaps Wednesday morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters, adding the chamber is waiting for the Senate to transmit the legislation it amended.”
• “The timeline puts Congress on track to adopt the stimulus package before millions of Americans are set to lose unemployment benefits March 14. It also opens the door for the U.S. government to start sending one-time checks to a large number of families ‘by the end of the month,’ White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday,” per Tony and Jeff.
• The president is set to deliver a prime-time address on Thursday on the one year anniversary of the coronavirus shutdown, our colleague Felicia Sonmez reports.  He will talk about the role “Americans will play in beating the virus,” Psaki told reporters.

MORE FROM WOMEN’S DAY: Biden also announced a fresh look at Title IX on campuses. “Biden directed the Education Department to review a controversial regulation governing how colleges and universities handle allegations of sexual assault, with an eye toward unraveling a new system put into place by former education secretary Betsy DeVos,” our colleague Laura Meckler reports.

• The president also “signed a second executive order establishing a new White House Gender Policy Council charged with developing a government-wide strategy for advancing gender equity and equality.” Issues of transgender people will be included.
• He nominated Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost and Lt. Gen. Laura Richardson “to four-star commands, hailing the nominees as ‘two outstanding and eminently qualified warriors and patriots,’” our colleague Felicia Sonmez reports.

REPARATIONS FOR BLACK FARMERS: “A little-known element of Biden’s massive stimulus relief package passed by the Senate on Saturday will pay billions of dollars to disadvantaged farmers — a provision that will benefit Black farmers in a way that some experts say no legislation has since the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” our colleague Laura Reiley reports. 

• “Of the $10.4 billion in the American Rescue Plan that will support agriculture, approximately half will go to disadvantaged farmers. About a quarter of disadvantaged farmers are Black.”
• “While it’s a fraction of the $1.9 trillion bill, advocates say it still represents a step toward righting a wrong after a century of mistreatment of Black farmers by the government and others. Some say it is a form of reparations for African Americans who have suffered a long history of racial oppression.”
• Context: “Black farmers in America have lost more than 12 million acres of farmland over the past century, mostly since the 1950s a result of practices that have denied Black [farmers] equitable access to markets … Today, the average farm operated by an African American is about 100 acres, compared with the national average of about 440 acres.”

HAPPENING TODAY: Lisa Monaco and Vanita Gupta are set to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee as lawmakers consider their credentials to serve as deputy attorney general and associate attorney general respectively, David Nakamura reports. 

• Expect controversy. “Conservatives already have aimed heavy criticism at Gupta, calling her a liberal activist with extreme positions on race and social justice who would seek to use the department’s No. 3 position to dismantle local police departments. Those attacks have been countered by support for Gupta from numerous law enforcement officials and police unions who said she collaborated with them while leading the civil rights division under President Barack Obama.” 
• Meanwhile, Monaco “has expressed frustration that career government officials and technical experts were disregarded or dismissed for political reasons under [former president] Trump, and she has pledged to help [attorney general nominee Merrick] Garland restore the Justice Department’s independence from partisan politics.” 

MIGRANT SHELTERS ARE APPROACHING ‘MAXIMUM CAPACITY’: “The number of unaccompanied migrant children detained along the southern border has tripled in the last two weeks to more than 3,250, filling facilities akin to jails as the Biden administration struggles to find room for them in shelters,” the New York Times’s Zolan Kanno-Youngs reports.

• “The federal government is required to move unaccompanied children within three days from the border facilities to shelters managed by the Department of Health and Human Services, where they are held until they are placed with a sponsor.”
• “Until last Friday, when the government lifted the restrictions, the shelters were at reduced capacity because of the pandemic. [They are now] 13 days away from ‘maximum capacity.’”
• “The figures highlight the growing pressure to address the increased number of people trying to cross the border.”

TRUMP VS. THE GOP: “Trump is escalating his battle against GOP leaders, demanding that the Republican campaign arms stop fundraising off his name and promising to travel outside the Lower 48 states to [oust] Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), who is up for reelection in Alaska,” the Hill’s Jonathan Easley reports. 

• “His actions suggest he’s still furious at the 10 House Republicans and seven Senate Republicans who voted to impeach him as well as with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other GOP leaders who have called on the party to move away from his brand of politics.”
• The move could hurt Republicans. “Trump’s brand is enormously helpful to Republicans when it comes to fundraising and generating enthusiasm among the base. Some Republicans are worried his latest move could be a drag on their efforts to win back majorities in the House and Senate.”

NEW CDC GUIDELINES: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released guidance for fully vaccinated people Monday. Fully vaccinated people who are two weeks past their final shot date can: 

• Visit with other fully vaccinated people indoors without wearing masks or physical distancing.
• Visit with unvaccinated people from a single household who are at low risk for severe covid-19 disease indoors without wearing masks or physical distancing.
• Refrain from quarantine and testing following a known exposure if asymptomatic.

SWEEPING CHANGES NEEDED TO IMPROVE CAPITOL SECURITY: “A review of security at the U.S. Capitol commissioned after the deadly riot on Jan. 6 found that Capitol Police are too ‘understaffed, insufficiently equipped, and inadequately trained’ — and woefully lacking in intelligence capabilities — to protect Congress from a similar future attack,” our colleague Karoun Demirjian reports. “The 15-page draft report from retired Army Lt. Gen Russel Honoré outlines recommendations to address shortfalls in physical and operational security.” 

• Honoré recommended on-duty “rapid-response units when Congress is in session, additional bomb-sniffing dogs on campus, and a revival of a mounted police force, to act as ‘moving walls’ that can break up crowds.” Read the report. 
• “But it’s unclear whether a divided Congress will heed the guidance.”

CHAUVIN MURDER TRIAL POSTPONED UNTIL TODAY: “Jury selection is scheduled to move forward [today] in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged in the death of George Floyd, despite an ongoing dispute over the addition of a third-degree murder charge that threatens to delay the case,” our colleagues Holly Bailey and Jared Goyette report. 

• “Proceedings halted Monday after state prosecutors questioned if Hennepin County District Court Judge Peter A. Cahill could move forward without ruling on the prosecution’s efforts to re-add a third-degree murder charge.”
• “Cahill said he was not yet able to make a ruling on the issue, but said he planned to move forward with jury selection and other issues in the case. That decision drew objection from prosecutors who filed a motion to stay the case with the Minnesota Court of Appeals arguing the lack of clarity on charges.”