Eye on Congress

Michele Alt, Dan Awrey and Caitlin Long provide an overview of the world of bank charters and fintech charters — and what they mean for crypto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Senate voted this week to advance bipartisan infrastructure legislation with $550 billion in new spending over the next 5 years. CQ Roll Call’s Jennifer Shutt and David Lerman discuss the road ahead for the bill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Voter nullification, authoritarianism, and the end of democracy, that’s what Rep. James E. Clyburn says are the very real consequences of not passing legislation to protect voting rights. The South Carolina Democrat emphasized that voter suppression is not just an issue of access to the ballot box, it includes who gets to overturn elections.  “I want you to call it what it is, use the word. Nullification.” said Clyburn, “It is voter nullification.” There are currently two bills, the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, in front of Congress. Senate Democrats are meeting to hash out a revised bill that could be released next week.  Mary C. Curtis sits down with the House Majority Whip to discuss voting rights, and to understand what are the very high stakes and what can be done with dwindling time on the clock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Six years ago, Malcolm Graham lost his big sister, Cynthia Graham Hurd, in the Charleston shooting that took nine Black churchgoers' lives. Now a city councilman in Charlotte, N.C., Graham reflects on the work he did to remove the Confederate flag from its prominent place on the South Carolina statehouse grounds, the future of racial matters in our country and his sister's legacy.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, the White House celebrated the 31st anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, touted as a bipartisan success that has delivered for Americans, and hinted it could be used to help secure voting rights. CQ Roll Call Chief Correspondent Niels Lesniewski joins the Political Theater podcast to talk about the law, and the challenges remaining. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fintech Beat sits down with Stefania Di Bartolomeo, CEO of Physis Investment, to talk about impact investing and the rising tide of startups aiming to shape ESG.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The House is taking up seven appropriations bills as one package next week, bringing debates about federal funding for abortion, environmental policy and infrastructure to the floor. CQ Roll Call’s Jennifer Shutt and David Lerman break down the road ahead for these bills. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Initially conceived as a temporary solution for vulnerable immigrants, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program has become an intractable political battlefield as Congress continues to punt, year after year, a comprehensive overhaul of the country's immigration program. The latest chapter has underscored the fragility of even a government policy that has been around for almost 10 years: A district court judge in Texas last week struck it down, blocking new applications but allowing the more than 600,000 current recipients to stay in the program. More court cases will work their way through the system, but the onus is now also on a Congress that has tried, and failed, for years to address the topic. CQ Roll Call Staff Writer Suzanne Monyak joins us on the Political Theater Podcast to talk about why even a popular program supported by both sides of the aisle continues to be such a political football, as well as what's next.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former Federal Reserve Board Governor Dan Tarullo and Avanti founder Caitlin Long discuss the Basel Committee’s proposed guidance on capital rules for crypto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Senate Democrats agreed this week to work toward a $3.5 trillion reconciliation package, which would fund major programs President Joe Biden proposed in his economic plans. CQ Roll Call’s Jennifer Shutt and David Lerman discuss the plan, Democratic unity around the package and the likely long voting sessions ahead. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Slavery, Jim Crow laws and COVID-19 all have contributed to a yawning gap between white public school students and students of color. While the 1950s Supreme Court decision known as Brown v. Board of Education was supposed to correct "separate but equal," there is still a long way to go before public schools can talk about equity. Mary C. Curtis talks with Terra Wallin of the Education Trust to understand how we arrived at this moment and how the nation's public schools can do better. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Midterm elections have patterns, but the political calculus we use sometimes needs a little adjusting. A delayed redistricting cycle, former President Donald Trump’s influence over key Senate and House races and changes to several states’ voter access laws make the 2022 campaign particularly hard to gauge. Nathan Gonzales, elections analyst for CQ Roll Call and the publisher of Inside Elections, joins the Political Theater podcast to discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Digital assets have very different technical features. What is regulation's role in their interoperability? Citi's Tony McLaughlin and Jai Messari join the show to discuss McLaughlin's new paper, “The Regulated Internet of Value”. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Both chambers are expected to debate and vote on a fiscal 2022 budget resolution with reconciliation instructions, while the Senate is planning to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure package and the debt limit suspension set to expire at the end of the month. CQ Roll Call’s Jennifer Shutt and Niels Lesniewski discuss everything to look out for in a packed July. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It has been a little more than a year since we launched CQ Future. At the time, the pandemic was in full swing, as was the Black Lives Matter movement. It was a moment of great uncertainty and we set out to explore what the future would look like for many policies that would shape our lives coming out of all this change. While there are still a lot of open questions, we believe it is the right moment to end this podcast as the country stabilizes. So for the last episode, CQ Roll Call's Shawn Zeller speaks with political experts on where the politics of our nation are headed. Thanks for listening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Supreme Court justices like to portray themselves as legal actors, not political ones, but the high court has never been able to stay out of the public arena. That was certainly the case for the term that just ended, and it is certainly the case for the term to come. CQ Roll Call senior writer Todd Ruger discusses the court’s recent decisions, its upcoming ones and the effect that Congress and the president have on the institution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we celebrate our 100th episode with an encore presentation of our conversation with Barry Eichengreen on whether a foreign CBDC could displace the US dollar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The country’s history of redlining, racially restrictive covenants, zoning regulations and more has embedded racism in its housing policies. Simply put, Black communities have been devalued through these policies. Untangling that legacy has proven difficult, especially when some politicians have resisted progress. Mary C. Curtis sits down with Andre M. Perry, author of “Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America's Black Cities," to discuss how we got here, what the Biden administration is trying to change and what can be done to dismantle housing discrimination. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just before the Independence Day recess, the House is moving anew to remove statues of people in the Capitol who were part of the Confederacy or were otherwise white supremacists. Host Jason Dick and CQ Roll Call staff writer Chris Marquette discuss the long debate over such figures, why they are so divisive and what happens next to replace them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Biden administration has reached an agreement with a group of bipartisan senators on an infrastructure package, but issues remain. CQ Roll Call’s Jennifer Shutt and David Lerman discuss the latest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices