Louisiana

If lawmakers thinking legislating is hard, try being a teacher — or a kid.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., spent some time over August recess learning that lesson from his pre-voting age constituents.

Louisiana Rep. Ralph Abraham took “affront” to Virginia Rep. Tom Garrett bringing up Louisiana when assigning blame for the weekend’s white supremacist march that ended in violence and killed three people.

In an interview with Fox News, Garrett blamed outsiders for the demonstration and violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, saying the march was made up of “people from Arkansas, Colorado, and Louisiana, and New York who all came to a bucolic town where Thomas Jefferson sat when he wrote the words ‘All men are created equal,’” plus “a small handful of local radical lunatics.”

The Republican effort to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature health care law may have stalled, but lobbyists are pushing the GOP to continue to target the provisions the industry most despises: the law’s taxes.

House and Senate Republicans hope to push forward on a tax overhaul when Congress returns in September, an item they previously delayed in favor of health care. Repealing the 2010 health care law and its corresponding taxes would have helped simplify the GOP’s upcoming work, but those hopes were deflated when the Senate did not pass a repeal bill last month.

Sen. Lamar Alexander had barely announced his plans to hold hearings next month on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on stabilizing the insurance markets for Obamacare when the idea started getting panned.

Keep in mind there are no specific hearings scheduled yet, no witnesses, no bill written, and few parameters of what is on or off the table. Alexander, the committee chairman, has only said that he wants a final product to be “small, bipartisan, and balanced,” but he hasn’t said what that means, other than flexibility for states and short-term triage for the exchanges.

Senate Budget Chairman Michael B. Enzi told Republicans Thursday he intends to mark up a fiscal 2018 budget resolution in September.

In addition, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., met with Republicans on the Budget Committee late Thursday morning and charged them with producing a budget resolution after the recess.

The Capitol Police Containment and Emergency Response Team was directed to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s house the day of the Republican baseball practice shooting, as oppose to the Alexandra, Va., field where the incident occurred, Bloomberg first reported.

There is an open internal investigation about how Pelosi’s Georgetown home was given as the address on June 15 when gunman James Hodgkinson opened fire on the practice.

First son-in-law Jared Kushner is scheduled to speak to interns on Capitol Hill today at 3 p.m. as part of the House Administration Committee and Senate Committee on Rules and Administration’s Intern Lecture Series.

It was originally scheduled for July 28 and then moved to today. The White House senior adviser’s lecture will take place in the Capitol Visitor Center’s Congressional Auditorium.

President Donald Trump is considering stripping the employer contribution for health insurance away from members of Congress.

While the Trump White House has previously declined numerous requests from Roll Call to weigh in on the possibility, the president took to his favorite social media platform Saturday to make the threat himself.

By JOHN T. BENNETT And NIELS LESNIEWSKIUpdated at 4:47 p.m. | Amid pleas from Republicans and Democrats for the parties to begin work on a bipartisan health care bill, President Donald Trump and White House officials on Friday doubled down on his call to put off any action until Barack Obama’s 2010 law fails.

Ailing Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain shocked senators from both parties early Friday morning when he voted against a GOP leadership-crafted measure that amounted only to a partial repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Back in Washington after a brain tumor diagnosis, McCain made clear his vote was a shove for the entire Senate to get back to “regular order” — meaning hearings and floor debate — on health care and every other issue.

By JOE WILLIAMS, REMA RAHMAN and LINDSEY McPHERSON

Senate Republicans are hinging their support on a “skinny” bill to repeal the 2010 health care law on assurances that the chamber would go to conference with the House on a broader bill with replacement measures.