The state of our union is…riven.

With 2013 going down as the least productive legislative year since the 1940s thanks to dug-in partisan politics, President Barack Obama reportedly will rely less on Congress and more on himself this year as he attempts to add to his legacy before the next presidential campaign begins in earnest.

Still, when it comes to addressing income inequality and many other topics the president is prioritizing, it’s hard to get much done without movement in the House and Senate, making it unlikely that Obama will strike too defiant a pose in his State of the Union address tonight.

Here’s a taste of what the president is likely to have on his list, and who’s likely to be pushing one way or another.

The economy

Although we’re only four months removed from the first U.S. government shutdown in nearly twenty years, it appears that the “push it to the limit” style of governing we’ve become so accustomed to over the past few years is in the rear-view mirror for Congress, at least for 2014.

Congress passed a $1.1 trillion bipartisan budget deal in December that will keep the government running until September 2015, which means no shutdowns for at least 21 more months. The largest role that the new budget will play in fiscal policy in 2014 is the removal of $45 billion, or about half, of the sequester cuts that were set to go into effect this year.

The sector that’s likely to feel the biggest relief due to the new budget is defense, as the bargain restores $22 billion in defense spending that had been cut due to sequestration. That’s welcome news to contractors in the defense sector, which had 219 clients spend more than $97 million on lobbying last year, not including the last three months. The industry also contributed more than $7 million to campaigns and committees in the first three quarters of 2013.

What the compromise doesn’t do is raise the federal debt ceiling, which was suspended until Feb. 7 as part of the deal to end the government shutdown. After that, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said his department can keep the country paying its bills through “extraordinary measures” for another few weeks, but lawmakers must act soon. Obama has said he won’t engage in horse trading to get the debt limit raised.

With the budget brinksmanship over, at least for a few years, it has been reported that Obama wants to use the State of the Union to address a different economic problem: income inequality. In his speech, Obama will reportedly call for two actions: increasing the minimum wage to $10 per hour and extending unemployment benefits, which expired in December.

The potential minimum wage increase is certain to attract attention from interest groups, as 232 organizations have mentioned it in their lobbying reports since 2006. Large unions like the American Federation of Government Employees and organized labor’s trade group, the AFL-CIO, favor the increase; they spent $1.2 million and more than $5 million, respectively, on lobbying in 2013. Since 2008, the AFL-CIO has poured more than $1.5 million into federal elections, with 100 percent of those contributions going to Democrats. For the 2014 election cycle, all labor groups have contributed nearly $29 million through Sept. 30, 2013.

On the other side, a number of corporations and trade groups, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Restaurant Association, are against a minimum wage hike. Both groups have deep pockets — particularly the Chamber, which spent nearly $205 million on lobbying over the past two years.

As for extending unemployment benefits, the Senate has been attempting to reach a deal to renew the benefits since early January. House Speaker John Boehner has said he’s open to an extension, but has stressed that offsetting cuts elsewhere in the budget must offset the spending.

Immigration



2013 looked like it would finally be the year Congress passed significant immigration overhaul.

Over the past 15 years or so, Congress has repeatedly flirted with the idea of comprehensive change to the immigration process, but lawmakers have yet to produce a substantive law to show for it.

For a few months last year, it appeared that was going to change. A push for serious immigration overhaul began to take shape in January, when President Obama called on Congress to pass a substantive reform bill in his 2013 State of the Union address.

The Senate’s bipartisan “Gang of Eight” drafted a bill to increase border security and provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, among other measures. As the bill came into focus, lobbying took off. The number of groups lobbying on immigration rose to 621 in 2013, nearly 35 percent more than at any time over the past fifteen years. Among them, 461 specifically listed lobbying on the Senate’s immigration bill.

Chief among those organizations were technology companies like Microsoft, Oracle and Yahoo!, which tend to hire high-skilled immigrant workers. Microsoft, in particular, put a lot into the effort. The company listed immigration issues in 45 disclosure reports last year, and the three bills it lobbied the hardest all had to do with changing the immigration and visa processes.

Pro-immigration organizations like the National Council of La Raza and National Immigration Forum continued their lobbying push from previous years. And others, like the Agricultural Coalition for Immigration Reform, vastly increased their lobbying budgets from 2012, with most of their efforts specifically targeting the Senate bill.

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But not everyone favors an overhaul of the immigration system. Numbers USA, an anti-immigration group, has ramped up its lobbying budget to about half a million dollars over the past few years to counter bills like the Senate’s. And other groups against the measure, like the Federation for American Immigration Reform, spent more than $130,000 on lobbying last year.

With enough lobbying power behind it, the Senate bill passed with 68 votes. But that’s where it ended, as Boehner repeatedly stated that the House would not take the measure up.

There’s still some hope for the bill, however. House leaders have said more than once that they intend to pass parts of the 2013 immigration measure this year, though on a piece-by-piece basis. That chamber’s Republican leaders are set to unveil their own plan for immigration reform later this week, though whether that will turn into legislation is still uncertain. But the potential for change and compromise should keep many groups deeply invested in the issue in 2014.

Climate change

In 2013, Obama dedicated more than 600 words to the topic of energy and climate change, about 10 percent of his entire address. Superstorm Sandy had struck just a few weeks earlier, helping make the case more pressing, and environmental activists greeted Obama’s strong language with enthusiasm.

“[I]f Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will,” he said last year, promising to counter congressional inaction with executive orders. Vows of further Oval Office action will be a hallmark of this year’s speech, as well, according to members of Obama’s Cabinet.

The president did act in 2013: In June, he announced the Environmental Protection Agency would impose caps on the carbon dioxide released by coal and gas-fired plants — new and old. Southern Co. and other large utilities lobbied for a House resolution disapproving the mandate, but after months of delays, a cap on emissions from new plants was formalized earlier this month. The EPA is now working on emissions standards for existing sites, which are expected in coming months.

Energy executives are wringing their hands, and emptying their pockets, at the possibility of shuttering old and inefficient plants; Southern Co. alone spent nearly $13 million overall on lobbying in 2013.

The energy and natural resources industry doled out $26.7 million in political spending in the first three-quarters of 2013, about 75 percent of which landed in Republican coffers. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) netted almost a million dollars of it — more than $916,000 — the most of any lawmaker in either chamber. Giving by the coal industry skews more Republican than even oil and gas or electric utilities contributions — and could increase even more after the leak of a coal-washing chemical into a West Virginia river recently shut down the water supply for days.

When it comes to money, whether for lobbying or campaign contributions, the enviro nonprofits are no match for their counterparts in the energy industry. Of the 20 most prolific organizations lobbying on the environment, the ratio of lobbying reports by environmental organizations to lobbying reports by energy corporations stood at about 1:27 in 2013, as of Sept. 30.

For all of the political contributions and lobbying by energy corporations, though, it seems the green activists with whom they so often spar with remain hopeful.

“2014 has the potential to be a breakthrough year on climate in the U.S. and the president has the opportunity to show stronger leadership this year than he has,” Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, told the Washington Post. “At the top of the list is a renewed commitment to get tough on the climate action plan.”

Health care

In this first State of the Union address since the implementation of Obamacare began, the president will be eager to tout success stories to counter some of the damaging press that hit the program beginning last fall.

don’t get to keep their doctor, contrary to what Obama promised, have been seized upon by Republicans gearing up for the midterm elections. Already, huge sums of money are being spent on ads attacking Democratic candidates for their votes to pass Obamacare. The initial failures of the sign-up system and the fact that some peopleget to keep their doctor, contrary to what Obama promised, have been seized upon by Republicans gearing up for the midterm elections. Already, huge sums of money are being spent on ads attacking Democratic candidates for their votes to pass Obamacare. Americans For Prosperity, the politically active nonprofit with ties to the conservative activist billionaire Koch brothers, has already made multimillion dollar advertising buys targeting Democrats. Several liberal outside groups, including Organizing For Action, the nonprofit built from the 2012 Obama presidential campaign, have fired back — though not dollar-for-dollar.

All told, estimates of how much has been spent by outside groups in the 2014 cycle already tops $27 million , though how much more is unclear since much of the activity is in the form of “issue ads” that don’t have to be reported this far away from an election. Many of the conservative ads focus on health care.

Well before the election, though, there’s next month’s deadline for raising the nation’s debt ceiling, and some Republicans have made noises about holding it hostage until Democrats agree to repeal parts of the health law.

Of course, health care is always a major topic in Washington; the industry, especially health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, has as much of a grip on Washington as ever. Through the first three-quarters of 2013, the top two industries spending on federal lobbying were pharmaceuticals and health products ($171.7 million) and insurance ($113 million.)

And demonstrating the bipartisan oomph of the health sector, both Democrats and Republicans in Congress count health professionals and insurance among their top ten donors (Nos. 2 and 4, respectively, for Republicans, and Nos. 5 and 6 for Democrats). Pharmaceuticals are the 12th largest source of campaign cash for members of both parties.



Images: Minimum wage rally via Flickr user CT Senate Democrats; immigration rally via Flickr user Anuska Sampredo; John E. Amos power plant, Winfield, W.Va., via Flickr user Wigwam Jones; Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius via Flickr user US Mission Geneva.





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