Recapping yesterday's action:

The House passed the rule for consideration of the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act, and completed consideration of H.R. 2838, the Coast Guard authorization bill, including the Republican rejection of the motion to recommit that would have prohibited awarding contracts to anyone convicted of fraud. Yay! Go fraud!

The Senate continued debate on the second "minibus" appropriations bill, and approved the nominations of two federal judges, Sharon Gleason, to the District of Alaska and Yvonne Rogers, to the District of Northern California.

The day also included the typical allotment of unanimous consent motions, including one adopting S.Res.323, recognizing the 75th Anniversary of the Welfare Program of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What an interesting idea! Welfare! This is good news for John McRomney.

Looking ahead to today:

The bulk of the day in the House will be spent on the gun free-for-all bill. Now, I know there are plenty of good progressives who believe strongly in gun rights. I just find it a little weird that people think they should be able to carry some random state's laws around with them in their pockets (along with the gun) wherever they go. If you leave the jurisdiction, you leave the jurisdiction. That's no surprise to anyone. That's been reality for 200+ years. Plus, lots of states require that permit applicants be adjudged "of good character" by local police. But under this law (and some already-existing state-by-state reciprocity laws), you can bypass your local cops by obtaining an out-of-state permit from a jurisdiction that knows nothing about you. They ought to call it the National Gag Order for Local Cops Act. But, hey, no one listens to me.

Anyway, as I said, the bulk of the day will be spent on the gun bill and its ten approved amendments. But that bill's consideration will be bookended by a motion to suspend the rules and adopt the Senate version of H.R. 674, the 3% withholding repeal, and by those leftover, postponed votes on Monday's suspension bills.

The Senate will continue its debate of "minibus II," mostly, I think, as a holding pattern while it awaits delivery of the continuing appropriations bill from the House later in the week.

Today's floor and committee schedules appear below the fold.

Recapping Last Week in Congress

The House was in recess last week. The Senate was in session, however, and succeeded in invoking cloture on a motion to proceed to, amending, and then passing H.R. 674, repealing the never-implemented 3% withholding policy for government contractors. Other major items of business included the rejection of motions to proceed on resolutions of disapproval regarding EPA cross-border pollution rules, and FCC net neutrality regulations. And just before breaking for the weekend, the Senate voted to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed a second "minibus" appropriations bill (Energy & Water, Financial Services, and Foreign Operations). That's a lot of votes on motions to proceed for a Senate that supposedly has an agreement in place not to filibuster so many motions to proceed, wouldn't you say?

This Week in Congress

Everybody's back in town this week, and not a moment too soon, since the current continuing appropriations bill that's funding government operations expires this Friday. And that means, at least technically, that we're staring down the barrel of a government shutdown yet again. We'll have to see whether the threat develops into anything serious, or dissolves as the week progresses.

The House is scheduled to take up a continuing appropriations bill this week, but not before first renaming seven post offices, a federal courthouse and a wildlife refuge; voting on H.R. 674 as amended last week by the Senate; completing the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act, and; undermining the entire premise of state sovereignty on gun laws (even though Republicans have traditionally relied on "states' rights" to duck so many other tough issues) in the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act. Then, after all that and the continuing approps bill, they'll vote on a balanced budget amendment. It's like they can't stand dealing with real work, without diluting it with fantasy.

The Senate schedule so far reflects only the start of debate on the second "minibus" appropriations bill, and upcoming votes on two more federal judges. But they'll really be waiting for the House to send them the next continuing approps bill, the vehicle for which will be H.R. 2112. You'll remember that as the one that became the first of the "minibus" bills two weeks ago, when the Senate attached the Commerce, Justice, and Science; and Transportation/HUD bills to the Ag bill. Spotting the oncoming freight train of another shutdown deadline, the House-Senate conference added continuing appropriations language to the bill before sending it back out to for floor action this week. Hopefully, the fact that this bill has successfully emerged from conference is an indication that it can pass without major difficulty. But in case you were wondering, yes, you can filibuster a conference report.

Full floor and committee schedules are below the fold.

Recapping yesterday's action:

The only action in town was in the Senate yesterday (which will be the case all week long), so the "action" is likely to be limited. But today we have a successful cloture motion to report, on H.R. 674, the 3% withholding repeal bill. The original Senate version of this bill failed to get cloture on the motion to proceed back on October 20th, but that time around it came up for a vote as the proposal of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), as an alternative to the first part of the split-up American Jobs Act, and without the "pay-for" attached to the House version—that being the rejiggered Medicaid eligibility guidelines.

Looking ahead to today:

The Senate will be running out the post-cloture clock on the motion to proceed to H.R. 674 today, and they'll spend some of that time debating and voting on the nomination of a new Federal Circuit judge. But yes, even while that's happening, officially speaking, the Senate will be spending its day further debating its decision to allow a vote on whether or not to begin debate on H.R. 674.

BUT THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE SENATE OR SENATE PROCEDURE. NOPE!

Today's floor and committee schedules appear below the fold.

Recapping Last Week in Congress

Not a hugely productive week in the House last week. Lots of non-controversial suspensions, including the utterly nonsensical and now infamous reaffirmation of "In God We Trust" as the national motto. The substantive work for the week consisted of small bore securities deregulation bills, which passed with near-unanimous, bipartisan support.

The Senate, for all its procedural uncertainties, still managed a more substantive schedule last week. They completed work on and passed the "minibus" appropriations bill, returning that to the House and preparing for a conference, if necessary. But they ran into yet another Republican brick wall in attempting to pass a second portion of the American Jobs Act, this one focusing on transportation infrastructure projects.

This Week in Congress

You're not gonna believe this, but the House is in recess again this week. Yes, it seems like it just happened. (Because it did. Two weeks ago.) And yes, we are just two weeks away from another government shutdown, and will have just one week left when they finally do return. But the House is not here.

The Senate will be here, though. Not that we can be sure we know what they'll be doing. But they'll be here. 

First on the list is a cloture vote on yet another motion to proceed, this time to H.R. 674, the 3% withholding tax repeal measure. We'll have to wait and see on this one. You may recall that the cloture vote failed on the motion to proceed to the Senate version of this bill back on October 20th. Perhaps having the House pass it will add some pressure on the Republican side to let this through to a vote this time.

Other than that, there are some agreements in place for votes on a judicial nomination, and two resolutions of disapproval: S.J.Res.6, on FCC Net Neutrality policy from Rand Paul (R-KY) and S.J.Res.27, regarding EPA regulations on cross border air pollution from Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX). Beyond those items, there's no clear road map for the rest of the week, except to reiterate that we're once again running up against a government shutdown deadline, not to mention the deadline for the Super Committee to report out its bill. So perhaps we can expect to see some appropriations work later this week.

Full floor and committee schedules are below the fold.

Recapping yesterday's action:

The House dispensed with its two Republican bills deregulating securities offerings, H.R. 2930 and H.R. 2940, with 400+ vote bipartisan majorities. So I suppose no one can complain that Democrats stood in the way of letting Republicans pass what bills they were willing to bring that they claimed would stimulate job creation. Whether anyone who voted for them believes they'll do much in that regard is a very different story.

The Senate, as expected, failed to adopt either of the motions to proceed to the rival infrastructure bills, but did manage to confirm one more federal judge, as well as process a number of less controversial measures by unanimous consent.

Looking ahead to today:

A light Friday schedule in the House today, the perfect complement to a week full of light fare, I suppose. Today's schedule includes one suspension bill, relating to eligibility standards for the America's Cup yacht races (what else would Republicans be doing in the middle of widespread street protests?), and a Coast Guard authorization bill with a raft of 18 amendments. A raft! Coast Guard! Heyo! They'll debate the bill for an hour, and spend 10 minutes each on the amendments, wrapping up the last votes by 3 p.m. and then breaking for the weekend.

The Senate is not in session today, and meets next on Monday of next week.

Today's floor and committee schedules appear below the fold.