“Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is expected to file cloture today on a bill by Sen. Richard Blumenthal that would enshrine a statutory right to abortion nationwide. The move will set up the upper chamber for a Wednesday vote — though the roll call will almost certainly fail to garner the 60 votes needed to clear the filibuster, as happened to a similar proposal earlier this year,” Politico reports.

“Among Democrats, there’s a debate over whether the party is better off trying to go it alone on this legislation (all the better to use to pummel the GOP on the campaign trail), or to take a more bipartisan approach by calling up an alternative to the Blumenthal bill that is narrower in its scope and backed by two Republican senators supportive of abortion rights: Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski.”

“Schumer, ever the political animal, has chosen the former approach.”

Playbook: “Republicans are already previewing the talking points they’ll employ as they move to filibuster the bill. As we reported… the NRSC is encouraging GOP candidates to change the topic from abortion rights overall to less-popular facets of the issue where Republicans feel they can win.”

“Congress returns this week to debate access to abortion, more U.S. aid to Ukraine and new funding to combat Covid-19, taking up high-stakes domestic and foreign matters ahead of a late-May Memorial Day break,” the Wall Street Journal reports.