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Search Results: this-week-in-congressThis Week in CongressPublished: May 30, 2011 by admin
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This Week in Congress
 Typical week in the House last week. Another in the continuing series of bills aimed at repealing part of the Affordable Care Act (harder than you said it was gonna be on the campaign trail, ain't it boys?), the defense authorization bill, and renewal of the the USA PATRIOT Act. In other words, more pulling the rug out from underneath regular people who just want to be able to afford to take their kids to the doctor, and then throwing the money out the window to the DoD and their contractors. Awesome! The Senate's entire week was consumed with the passage of the PATRIOT Act renewal, which normally would be something I'd use to make fun of the body's dysfunction. But a week really is probably way too quick to reauthorize that monstrosity. Consider that it took a month to pass that small business jobs bill not that long ago. Given that, what's the likelihood that the balance of liberty versus security can be correctly struck in just a week? The House is in session this week, which is out of keeping with recent tradition. Usually they're adjourned for the week of Memorial Day. But since they were just in recess the week before last, that wasn't likely to happen again quite so soon. First up (aside from the usual raft of suspensions) is a debt ceiling increase bill, which is itself coming to the floor under suspension of the rules. Why? Because it's a "clean" increase, meaning there are none of the Republicans' outrageous hostage-taking provisions attached to it. So they're bringing it to the floor under a procedure designed to cause it to fail, since passage under suspension of the rules requires a 2/3 vote. And after it fails to clear that artificially high barrier, Republicans will insist that this illustrates that there's no appetite in Congress for a clean increase. Also up this week, a resolution from Dennis Kucinich (D-OH-10) invoking the War Powers Resolution, directing the President to remove U.S. troops from Libya. Not sure how that's going to come out. Previously, Republicans had been big supporters of executive power in this area. But now that the President is Barack Obama (and I'll have you know that some of my best friends are Barack Obamas), things are looking a little different. Things wrap up this week with two of the regular, annual appropriations bills: Homeland Security, and Military Construction (MilCon). You tend to see these go through early in the appropriations process, and with relatively little controversy. People don't want to stand in the way of money for Homeland Security or military anything, for the most part. The Senate, thankfully, is following a more normal Memorial Day schedule—i.e., the one I was counting on when I scheduled my vacation for this week. So, thank you Senate for at least lightening the load a little. Full floor and committee schedules are below the fold.
This Week in CongressPublished: May 23, 2011 by admin
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This Week in Congress
Last Week in Congress Great week in the House last week! That is to say, the House was in recess last week. The Senate reported for work, but so did the Senate rules, which means that very little more was actually accomplished there than in the House. Not counting the Senate resolutions passed by unanimous consent, we're talking about the confirmation of a single judge (though it was a Circuit Court judge, nothing to sneeze at) getting through. And then after that, nothing. Well, nothing but the continued filibuster of Goodwin Liu's nomination, the filibuster of one Democratic bill to cut oil subsidies, and the filibuster of a Republican response that would have opened up a drilling free-for-all. This Week in Congress The House considers a short list of legislation this week, ranging from the merely boring to the truly disturbing. Six suspensions inspiring varying levels of boredom are scheduled, plus one bill repealing part of the ACA (what week would be complete without one of those?), a defense authorization bill, and depending on the Senate's ability to resolve the matter on their side, the long-term reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act. Yuck! The Senate starts in immediately on the business of the PATRIOT Act. Or more accurately, on the business of voting on cloture on the motion to proceed to the bill. This will be the third cloture motion filed on a motion to proceed in four working days in the Senate. You may remember that part of the "gentleman's agreement" reached on rules reform at the beginning of the session provided that Republicans would stop filibustering motions to proceed in exchange for agreement from Democrats not to block Republican amendments from the floor. As you can see, that's broken down some in the past few days. We'll see how important that is to Republicans on the PATRIOT Act. They clearly didn't care much that the Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act never made it to the floor, but they probably don't want to be responsible for blocking renewal of the PATRIOT Act. Then again, they might not think they'd catch the blame for this, being that running the Senate is the Democrats' responsibility. That's worked for them in the past. With the current extension of the PATRIOT Act expiring this Friday, we'll have their answer soon enough. Full floor and committee schedules are below the fold.
This Week in CongressPublished: May 16, 2011 by admin
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This Week in Congress
Last Week in Congress Last week was a bit of a time-waster in the House, but not as much as this week is going to be! As the rest of us waited for some job-related relief and some attention to the actual problems facing the country, the House passed two more offshore drilling free-for-all bills, repealing an imaginary drilling moratorium and granting permits by "deeming" the mandatory safety studies to have been completed, whether they'd been done or not. Those—for Republicans—are the lessons of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, it seems. Then a brief detour into reality, passing an Intelligence Authorization bill in an attempt to play catch-up in the wake of the Osama bin Laden killing. The Senate, for its part, got nothing done legislatively last week. But they did manage to confirm three judges, two of them by unanimous vote. They did, however, conspire to filibuster a vote confirming James Cole as Deputy Attorney General. Cole, you'll remember, was the House ethics committee special counsel who busted Newt Gingrich for his fiscal dalliances with the first iteration of "Newt, Inc.," which has once again become a topic of interest (as though it were something new) now that Gingrich is going through the motions of running for president. This Week in Congress So, how could this week in the House be any more of a time waster than last week? How about if they don't even return to session at all this week? Yes, that's right. Two weeks after returning from the last recess, and two weeks before they plan to leave for the next one... the House is taking just one more much needed week-long break. So what aren't they working on this week? Well for one thing, they won't be turning to foreclosure relief, like Rep. Raul Grijalva's Right to Rent Act: Oh, and another thing they won't be on hand to deal with: the debt ceiling: Happy debt-ceiling day! As of today, the authority Congress has given the Treasury to borrow money outpaces the borrowing required by the laws Congress has passed. Today, in other words, is the day we hit the debt ceiling. I hope you brought cake and candles. Forget cake and candles. Did anyone bring the Republican-controlled United States House of Representatives? No? Wow. Well, that must be because they are souch Very Serious People.TM The Democratic Senate, by contrast, will be on hand and begin work on confirming another judicial nominee, this time a Second Circuit appeals court judge, which is perhaps slightly heavier lifting than the district court judges that occupied their time last week. That's all we know for sure about the Senate schedule at this point, though we're still awaiting the threatened vote on the House's Paul Ryan budget, and of course, the debt ceiling limit still looms. And it's nearly June. Seems pretty irresponsible for the House to be out of town at this point, don't you think? Full floor and committee schedules are below the fold.
This Week in CongressPublished: May 9, 2011 by Will Urquhart
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This Week in Congress
Last Week in Congress A banner week in the politics of dogma and distraction for the House Republicans last week. The killing of Osama bin Laden changed Republican plans not a whit (though it kept the less-bonkers of them somewhat subdued), and they went straight ahead with their plans for passing two more bills aimed at repealing bits and pieces of the Affordable Care Act, the first of a raft of oil drilling bonanza bills, and the dangerously backward H.R. 3. The Senate didn't manage to get around to the threatened vote on the Ryan budget (or the threat of the competing vote on the President's budget), though Kent Conrad (D-ND) did manage to do a bit of freelancing and float a not particularly well-received budget outline himself. Substantively, though, the Senate accomplished nothing at all. There was, of course, the momentous decision to pay tribute to the members of the military and intelligence communities who contributed to the killing of bin Laden, but only upon the concession that both Presidents Bush and Obama be equally credited for putting the plan in motion. And on the matter of the long-lingering Small Business Jobs bill? Cloture could not be had, now that Republicans have learned that keeping it on the floor keeps it available as a vehicle for every ridiculous amendment they can think of. This Week in Congress The House keeps its head down at the beginning of the week, charging ahead with the ideological agenda. This time, it's the second and third in the series of oil drilling bills. But by the end of the week, they'll move on to the Intelligence authorization bill. Surprising, no? This is the first indication we have that the bin Laden killing has made a dent of any kind in the House. The intel bill was originally reported out of committee in early March, but languished with no action, while the House repealed the ACA over and over and over again. But suddenly—for no particular reason, I'm sure— the bill turned up, amended, ready for floor action last Tuesday. Ta-da! No telling what they'll get to in the Senate, but we know where they'll start. First order of business: another cloture vote on another nomination. This time it's Deputy Attorney General-designate James Cole. What's holding Cole up? Well, for one thing, he's currently serving in the position by virtue of a recess appointment made in December, and that always generates a little resentment in the Senate. But what's probably really getting certain Senators' goats, so to speak, is the fact that Cole was the special counsel to the House ethics committee in the mid-90s who busted Newt Gingrich. That's the run-down on where we stand heading into the week. Now on with the show! Full floor and committee schedules are below the fold. In the House, courtesy of the Office of the Democratic Whip: THE WEEKLY WHIP: FRIDAY, MAY 6, 2011 In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader: Convenes: 2:00pm This Week in CongressPublished: May 2, 2011 by Will Urquhart
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This Week in Congress
We'll be trying out some formatting tweaks in the coming weeks for the This Week/Today in Congress posts, the idea being to try to make them a little more reader (and skimmer) friendly. The series was originally designed with slightly different purposes in mind than I have for it today, so the change is overdue. The idea now is to give you a quick one or two minute hit on where we left off last week (or yesterday, in the case of Today in Congress), and the top issues you're likely to see in the coming week. The full House floor schedule and the Senate calendar are still here, but I'll tuck them below and see how it goes with just the commentary taking up front page real estate. So here we go! Last Week in Congress Last week, Osama bin Laden was alive. This week, he's not! Other than that, though... The Congress was in the last week of a two-week recess, during which several Republican House members found themselves facing hostile town hall audiences reacting to GOP budget and spending plans targeting Medicare and other social safety net programs for cuts, while extending still more tax cuts for the wealthy. That, of course, is thanks to the House’s agenda from the last week they were in session, during which they adopted both the cut-heavy continuing appropriations bill to keep the government funded for the rest of the year, and the ultra-regressive, Medicare-eliminating budget plan authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). This Week in Congress Unchastened by their angry constituents, the House GOP plan was to come back like gangbusters this week, bringing to the floor not one but two ACA repeal bills. Not one but two oil drilling free-for-all bills. And last but not least the infamous H.R. 3, hiking taxes on anyone who takes deductions for the cost of health insurance plans that cover abortion—which 87% of private plans in America do. (If you prefer getting the background on that in video format, Main Street Insider has you covered.) It remains to be seen whether the biggest 9/12 moment ever will derail any of this. I doubt it, but it's going to look a little petty to "respond" to the killing of Osama bin Laden with sloganeering about "Obamacare," and yet another abortion freak-out. Don't know yet whether it'll temporarily delay the plans to make the first order of business for the week (well, second) naming a federal courthouse after George W. Bush. In the Senate, another two non-controversial federal judge nominees are expected to slip through the filibuster noose. And word is that Majority Leader Harry Reid will seek to force a vote on the Ryan budget in the Senate, in retaliation for which Minority Leader (in name only) Mitch McConnell says he’ll try to force a vote on President Obama’s budget. Who knew that having a vote on a Republican budget was something the Republican “leader” felt would require retaliation? Speaking of the budget, have you got 90 seconds amid all the Bin Laden excitement to catch up on just what this "People's Budget" put forward by the Congressional Progressive Caucus is? C'mon, 90 seconds. For the federal budget. It's the latest of the Main Street Insider 90 Second Summaries, which I encourage you to check out as they're released each Monday. That's the short version of the "news you need to know" in order to keep up with happenings in Congress. For those of you who come by to wade through the nitty gritty details, we've still got 'em. But we're storing them below, accompanied as always by the committee schedule for the week. In the House, courtesy of the Office of the Democratic Whip: First Vote Of The Week: Monday 6:30 p.m. In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader: Convenes: 2pm
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