NRCC Weekly Rundown: Record March Dinner fundraising haul, Lon “Cottontail” Johnson’s stolen pictures, and more!
And here’s this week’s special March Dinner edition of the NRCC Weekly Rundown:
National: The NRCC raised a record $20.5 million at the annual March Dinner on Tuesday. Thank you to March Dinner Chair Adam Kinzinger and everyone who helped make this year’s dinner a huge success! #TeamNRCCFinance
CA-07: Things got even tougher this week for Ami Bera as Teamsters Joint Council 7 endorsed Republican Scott Jones. The Teamsters’ political director could not recall the union endorsing a Republican in a contested Congressional race before.
CA-25: Beverly Hills attorney Bryan Caforio may have committed mortgage fraud according to local reports. According to his mortgage deed, Caforio and his wife were required to occupy their home for a minimum of one year, but registered to vote in CA-25 just six months later.
MI-01: Detroit native Lon “Cottontail” Johnson was attempting to convince voters that he was in the Upper Peninsula this week, when he was actually in D.C., by tweeting pictures of the local sights, but instead of taking pictures himself, Johnson lazily stole images from Wikipedia and the Michigan State Senate website.
MI-07: Gretchen Driskell skipped votes held in the Michigan House of Representatives the same day as her fundraiser in Washington. This is not the first time Driskell put her Congressional campaign ahead of her constituents. She previously missed a transportation funding vote in October shortly after attacking Rep. Tim Walberg on transportation funding.
NEWS AND NOTES:
Rep. John Katko’s bill to boost security on U.S.-bound flights advances in House
A bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. John Katko to increase security at international airports with direct flights to the United States was approved Wednesday by a key House panel. The House Homeland Security Committee advanced the Securing Aviation from Foreign Entry Points and Guarding Airports Through Enhanced Security Act, which would require the Transportation Security Administration to roll out a plan for improving airline and passenger safety at last point of departure airports — facilities with direct flights to the U.S. READ
Rep McSally: Honoring their service: Female pilots stepped in when we needed them; now they need us
All these amazing women pilots earned the right to be laid to rest where our country’s greatest heroes sleep. They deserve to be memorialized where generations of Americans will learn what they did and know how they served. I’ve introduced bipartisan legislation overturning the Army’s decision to fight this injustice. My legislation already has over 180 cosponsors and passed last month out of the House Veterans Affairs Committee. READ
VA modernization hearing
Congressman Will Hurd chaired a House Oversight hearing, discussing how the VA can modernize to further protect Veterans. “We need to make sure that the VA is protecting that information the way they should be, that they’re following some of the basic principles of good, digital system hygiene”, said Hurd. READ
Comstock cites importance of cybersecurity in NIST budget hearing
“As you all know, one of the great challenges of the 21st century is cybersecurity,” Comstock, the chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Research and Technology, said. “Considering the constantly evolving cyber threats and technology, it is imperative that we do everything that we can to protect our citizens. In order to ensure this, NIST plays a very important role by providing guidelines and standards to help reduce cyber risks to federal agencies and critical infrastructure.” READ
Young explores changes in rural housing subsidies
Young, R-Iowa, said he asked the undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture at a 2017 budget subcommittee hearing this week to explore the pros and cons of changing the subsidies to be more like those provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. “We asked what a tiered (program) would look like, and why they don’t like it and why HUD does. We should hear before the end of the month,” he said READ