| Good morning, Early Birds! Summer left like it owed someone money … Why is it so dark and cold??? 😖 Tips on how to keep warm? earlytips@washpost.com. Thanks for waking up with us. In today's edition … The Congressional Progressive Caucus campaign arm is pushing back on the narrative that progressives had a dismal campaign season. … What we're watching: The Supreme Court takes up a Voting Rights Act case … Herschel Walker faces allegation he paid for an abortion … but first … | | |  | On K Street | | Lobbyists prepare for a House Republican takeover |  K Street is preparing for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to become Speaker McCarthy. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) | | | The midterm elections are five weeks away, but K Street is already preparing for the possibility of a Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) if Republicans retake the House in November. To prepare for divided government, Washington lobbying firms have been hiring aides to McCarthy, who's currently House minority leader, and other top House Republicans. They've held briefings and drafted memos for clients on what a Republican House would mean for them. And they've been shepherding clients to meet with Republican lawmakers and staffers who are likely to be in positions of power. Republicans are bullish on retaking the House, which requires them to flip only on a handful of seats. They face tougher odds in the Senate — and it may not be clear until December which party controls the chamber if neither Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) nor his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, secure 50 percent of the vote next month, forcing a runoff election. "If only the House goes, I think stuff can get done. If both [chambers] go, I think it's going to be a wasted two years, because I don't think the new House leadership is really going to be able to control a lot of the new Marjorie Taylor Greenes to productively legislate," said Rich Gold, a Democratic lobbyist who leads Holland & Knight's public policy and regulation group, referring to the Georgia Republican who has at times been a thorn in McCarthy's side. "And I don't think the majority's going to be big enough to ignore those people." | - But the likelihood that the House will flip has led companies to reach out to lobbying firms with strong House Republican ties such as Miller Strategies, CGCN Group, the Duberstein Group and the Petrizzo Group, according to people familiar with the matter.
| | Jeff Miller, Miller Strategies' founder, is a close friend of McCarthy and a top Republican fundraiser. John Stipicevic, McCarthy's former deputy chief of staff, is a lobbyist at CGCN, while Ben Howard, a former floor director for McCarthy, is a lobbyist at Duberstein. "There are a lot of calls coming in from companies that are looking at our firm's relationships that we have," said former Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), a lobbyist at K & Gates who was a close McCarthy ally in the House. Other lobbying firms have moved to add Republicans as the midterms get closer. Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, Washington's top firm by lobbying revenue, said on Friday that it had hired Will Dunham, McCarthy's deputy chief of staff for policy. And the lobbying firm Monument Advocacy brought on former aides to Reps. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) and John Katko (R-N.Y.) earlier this year. "We have intentionally gone and found some really good Republican veterans this year getting ready for next year," said Stewart Verdery, a Republican lobbyist and Monument's founder. | | Republicans will gain the power to investigate the Biden administration if they retake the House. They've signaled they plan to wield it aggressively — and corporate America might have reason to be afraid, too. The veteran Republican lobbyist Bruce Mehlman said next year could bring "the mother of all congressional oversight Congresses" if Republicans win the House and Democrats hold the Senate, with potential whiplash for corporate executives. | - "You could see an executive hauled in front of a Democratic Senate on Tuesday to explain why they're not moving faster on decarbonization, and the same executive hauled in front of a Republican House on Wednesday to explain why they're putting environmental considerations ahead of shareholder value," Mehlman said.
| | The law and lobbying firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld has held a series of briefings over the past few months with top Republican lawmakers and staffers to help prepare the firm's lobbyists and clients for what a Republican-controlled House might look like — including a briefing on congressional oversight with McCarthy's chief counsel. | | Other briefings have focused on trade, health care, tax policy and McCarthy's "Commitment to America" agenda. Casey Higgins, an Akin Gump lobbyist and a onetime aide to former House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, said the briefings provided the firm's clients valuable face time with top staffers. "Frankly, it's not often that you have the opportunity, especially with staff necessarily, to be able to sit and talk and brainstorm policy," she said. | | After Jan. 6, 2021, many corporate PACs vowed to stop giving to the 139 House Republicans and eight Senate Republicans who voted against certifying the election — a decision that could prove awkward if those Republicans are leading the House. McCarthy and Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), who's poised to become House majority leader if Republicans win the House, both voted against certification. "There was this recoil by many companies after Jan. 6," said T.J. Petrizzo, a longtime lobbyist and Republican fundraiser. With "Republicans in a good position to take back the House majority, how do they engage with them now?" The move by corporate PACs to stop giving to most House Republicans — about two-thirds of the conference voted against certification — has coincided with a shift in the party toward being more suspicious of "woke" corporations. | - "A lot of people in Washington think of the Republican Party as reflexively pro-business," said Republican lobbyist Sam Geduldig. "And I think that's not true anymore."
| | While Republicans still favor small businesses, those sympathies don't necessarily extend to big companies — especially ones that withhold PAC contributions from many Republican lawmakers. "I just think they're going to have a really hard time when they need these members," Geduldig said. | | |  | The campaign | | CPC campaign arm says progressives have had good year |  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) speaks at a campaign event for Texas congressional candidates Jessica Cisneros and Greg Casar in San Antonio. (Ilana Panich-Linsman/The Washington Post) | | | The Congressional Progressive Caucus campaign arm is pushing back on the narrative that progressives had a dismal campaign season. In a memo obtained by The Early, the CPC PAC writes that the candidates it endorsed and funded won 12 of 14 open seats this cycle. The memo points to wins by Maxwell Alejandro Frost in Florida's 10th District, Summer Lee in Pennsylvania's 12th District and Greg Casar in Texas' 35th District. | - "Even before the 2022 cycle is complete, it is clear that the 118th Congress, thanks to these bold new members, will be one of the most progressive Democratic Caucuses in modern history," CPC PAC Executive Director Evan Brown wrote in the memo.
| | Progressives have lost several high-profile races, however, including attempts to unseat moderate Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar in Texas and Rep. Danny K. Davis in Illinois. Progressives are hoping to hold more sway over the Democratic caucus in the next Congress and the CPC PAC, per the memo, said it is confident that 12 of their candidates in open seats in safe districts will enhance Progressive Caucus representation in the next Congress. It also says that as many as five CPC PAC-backed candidates in competitive races could also win, including Chris Deluzio in Pennsylvania's 17th District, Val Hoyle in Oregon's 4th District, Jamie McLeod-Skinner in Oregon's 5th District, Andrea Salinas in Oregon's 6th District, respectively, and Michelle Vallejo in Texas' 15th District. Democrats, however, have worried that some of these candidates are too liberal to win in competitive districts. The memo also touts its expanded independent expenditure efforts, which can be used for TV and digital ads and direct mail, saying the group spent $1.2 million in five open seats and $400,000 in Illinois for state Rep. Delia Ramirez in the 3rd District. | | |  | What we're watching | | | Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a high-stakes case concerning the Voting Rights Act that civil rights groups say could cripple Black voting power across the country. At issue is whether Alabama violated Section 2 of the act "by diluting the political power of Black voters when it failed to create a second district in which they make up a majority, or close to it," per AP News Kim Chandler, Mark Sherman and Gary Fields. Black Alabamians make up more than a quarter of the state's population but are the majority in only one district. | - More cases on the docket: The Supreme Court added nine additional cases to its docket yesterday, including two cases involving Google and Twitter. The cases "could test liability protections for social media companies for content posted by third parties," per our colleague Ann E. Marimow.
| | | | The campaign | | Walker faces allegation he paid for an abortion despite antiabortion stance |  Herschel Walker and former ambassador Nikki Haley speak with the press during Herschel's Unite Georgia Bus Stop rally in Norcross, Ga., on Sept. 9, 2022. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post) | | - "A woman who asked not to be identified out of privacy concerns told The Daily Beast that, after she and Walker conceived a child while they were dating in 2009, he urged her to get an abortion. The woman said she had the procedure and that Walker reimbursed her for it."
- "She supported these claims with a $575 receipt from the abortion clinic, a 'get well' card from Walker, and a bank deposit receipt that included an image of a signed $700 personal check from Walker."
| | Walker released a statement Monday evening calling the report a "flat-out lie" and threatened to "sue the Daily Beast for this defamatory lie." | | Walker also appeared on Fox News's Hannity to deny the allegation. "I send money to a lot of people," he told Sean Hannity. | | This episode is the latest in a series of scandals concerning allegations of violent behavior and fathering children out of wedlock despite Walker's vocal criticism of absentee fathers that have plagued the Senate candidate, who is in a tight race with Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) Walker, who is backed by former president Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), "is running in one of the most important races in the country, and the outcome could determine which party controls the Senate," Sollenberger writes. Polls show the race is very tight. | - The numbers: Warnock has raised more than $26.3 million in the third quarter, outpacing last quarter's $17.2 million haul. The campaign has $13.7 million cash on hand. Walker hasn't released his latest fundraising numbers yet.
| | |  | The Data | | | The strength of the U.S. dollar, visualized: "Nearly every major currency has lost ground against the U.S. dollar this month, an offshoot of the Federal Reserve's campaign to rein in inflation through higher interest rates," our colleague Hamza Shaban reports. "For Americans, a stronger dollar means cheaper imports and trips abroad. But it can also weigh on other economies, especially in the face of global conflict, because most commodities are priced in dollars, making necessities like oil and wheat more expensive. The same is true of public debt, bumping up the cost of interest payments." | | |  | The Media | | | |  | Coffee Break(s) | | | |  | Viral | | | | AM/PM | | Looking for more analysis in the afternoon? | | | | Weekday newsletter, PM |  | | | | | | |
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