My last email from D.C.

And a trip to the National Archives

I’m writing this from Gate E58 in Reagan National Airport.

It’s my last trip home from D.C. as a member of Congress.

Ten days ago, I was thinking about what this email would look like. I figured it would be pretty simple, along the lines of, “...and then we easily passed a budget extension and all went home.”

As it happened, the week was an explosive mess that perfectly encapsulated the whole experience - and, I imagine, reflects the likely course of the next two years.

Here’s what happened:

The government was set to run out of money on Friday, so we were going to do a budget extension for a few months and add some money for hurricane relief.

BUT this was the last bill of this Congress which means it was the last chance for members to get their priorities passed. Pretty soon members had added relief money for farmers, rebuilding the bridge in Baltimore, health care reforms, and more. It became a pretty big bill.

Then Elon Musk came out against it, then the President-elect, and that sunk it.

So the Speaker went back to the drawing board with about two days until shutdown - only now everyone was mad at him for how the first attempt went. Some were mad because he broke the deal; some were made because he made it in the first place.

Then, while the Speaker was scrambling to put together a new bill, the President-elect chimed in to say that he wanted the debt ceiling to get raised as part of it.

Well, that’s a big thing to throw into a negotiation 48 hours before the deadline.

Sure enough, the right-flank flipped out. A lot of them have never voted to raise the debt ceiling, even to the point of risking default. This is an issue that is core to their political identity and here was the incoming President, who they all support, demanding that they reverse themselves and threatening to run candidates against them in primaries if they didn’t.

So the Speaker caved, re-wrote the bill to include the debt ceiling request from the President-elect, and called it for a vote.

Here’s the thing: He knew it would fail. He was just going through the motions to appease the President-elect.

Sure enough, it went down in flames.

That pushed him onto Plan C. He huddled all day with his team, then started bringing in members one by one, testing various ideas.

It was starting to look like we really could have a government shutdown for the holidays. The only way to pass an extension was to leave out the debt ceiling piece, which meant risking the wrath of the incoming President.

But that’s what the Speaker did. With a few hours left on the clock, he called a vote on a bill that didn’t mention the debt ceiling, and it passed.

So we avoided a shutdown for the next 90 days and I have officially cast my last vote as a member of Congress.

The next Speaker fight

Looking beyond the details, last week fit the same pattern we’ve seen all year:

1. The right-flank opposes a major bill.

2. This forces the Speaker to go to the minority party for votes, which involves making concessions.

3. The right-flank becomes furious over the concessions, neglecting to mention that their initial opposition to the more conservative bill is what forced the Speaker to go to the minority party in the first place.

4. The Speaker allows himself to get torched on TV by his right-flank, knowing that most of what they want from being in Congress is just to elicit anger from a national audience. He doesn’t hit back; he’s a willing punching bag.

5. The right-flank appreciates that he doesn’t hit back, and everyone moves on.

All of which means:

There’s going to be another Speaker fight when the new Congress convenes in a couple weeks, but no matter who the next Speaker is - and my bet is it remains Mike Johnson - the defining legislative feature of the next Congress will be the same as the last one: the right-flank’s willingness to deny their Speaker party-line wins and force him to work with the minority party to get big stuff done.

The Archives

As mentioned, this was my last week in D.C. as a congressman - and there was something I needed to do before I left.

A year ago, right after I announced I was running for Attorney General and wouldn’t be coming back to Congress, I was on the House floor and a congresswoman walked over and gave me some great advice.

She said, “I saw you’re not coming back next term. You need to make sure you visit the National Archives before you go. And bring your staff. It’s not something everyone does but it’s really great.”

So I filed that away in my memory, and this was the week.

They brought us down to the vault where they store exceptionally rare documents.

They knew I represented North Carolina, so they had pulled a bunch of documents related to our state. For about an hour, the archivist gave us the historical context for each one - and it was truly fascinating.

Here was my favorite:

This is the letter that a newly-elected President George Washington sent to Congress letting them know that North Carolina had ratified the Constitution. It’s dated June 1790.

North Carolina famously held out on ratifying the Constitution by demanding a Bill of Rights. So the Constitution was ratified without North Carolina’s support and the first presidential election was held without their official participation. But one of the first acts of the first Congress was to propose a Bill of Rights. At which point, North Carolina promptly ratified the Constitution and joined our new nation.

It’s a piece of history that every North Carolina kid gets taught in civics. But here it was in front of me.

I studied the signature and thought the same thing everyone thinks when they see it:

“Wow. That’s actually George Washington’s signature.”

We’re certainly living through historic times, but it’s helpful to see a tangible reminder that we’ve lived through history before.

Attorney General-elect

One last thing.

You haven’t heard from me for a few weeks because I’ve been winding down my work in Congress while ramping up my work as AG-elect.

A big piece of that has been meeting the folks at the new office, which is the NC Department of Justice. There are roughly 1,000 employees.

You’ll hear more from me about this as I officially take over in a couple weeks, but for now, let me just say that these people are exceptional. They are doing a lot of work on your behalf.

And what have I learned from Congress that I can bring to this new job?

Be a decent person and that should take you far.

Decent people recognize decency in each other. And the bonds that form around decency - especially in a toxic environment - are very strong. The people I came to respect and sought out when I needed a legislative partner weren’t always the powerful people. They were usually just the folks I felt were serving for the right reasons. Those will be the people I miss, but then again, I’m about to start working with a whole bunch of folks who carry themselves exactly that way.

A true joy, and incredible good fortune. See you soon.

Best,

Jeff Jackson