Recapping Last Week in Congress

The House was not in session last week. They continue on their own merry way with their two weeks in, one week out schedule, uncoordinated with the other house, though that'll put them back in synch temporarily for the Easter/Passover break.

The Senate finally cut a deal on amendments and finished up its surface transportation authorization bill, culminating with a 74-22 vote on final passage, after spending over a month on the floor.

There was also some progress (slow and maddening, of course) made on a raft of judicial nominations. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed cloture motions on seventeen pending but stalled appointments, and was poised to call them up for votes one after the other, but an agreement was reached instead that allowed for votes on 14 of the 17 on a schedule stretched out over the two months. In exchange, Republicans get timely floor consideration for the minor (and bipartisan) financial market deregulation bill recently redubbed the "JOBS Act."

This Week in Congress

The House returns to DC today, but as usual comes in late in the afternoon (actually a couple hours later than usual for a Monday), and will take up two suspension bills. Tuesday brings just one more suspension, which makes me wonder whether they're running low on the kind of non-controversial stuff that keeps the gears turning during the first part of a typical business week. In fact, Tuesday's pretty picayune across the board, with the only other piece of legislation being a bill instructing the Secretary of the Interior to facilitate the transfer of a parcel of federal land in Accomack County, Virginia to the local government there.

The rest of the week is given over to H.R. 5. Yes, 5, which makes it one of the first and highest priority bills introduced in the current Congress, even though you've heard absolutely nothing about it for a year and a half. Well, I guess you've sort of heard something about it, if you count the random, blustering threats from Republicans to beat up lawyers and stuff. H.R. 5 is the "Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act." It's a bit of a strain as acronyms go. Help efficient, accessible, low-cost, timely healthcare... do what? Well, if you have to ask, you're a socialist, I guess. BANANAS score: 4. What does it do in order to help... all this stuff do... whatever? Nothing. It's a "tort reform" bill. You know the drill: can't sue after three years, cap on non-economic damages, proportional liability, etc., etc., etc. Same old song and dance as ever. Why it took them a year and a half to plate this garbage up for us, I have no idea.

The Senate's schedule is uncertain (as usual) beyond the planned consideration of the aforementioned financial deregulation bill, which Senate leadership is referring to as the "Capital Formation/IPO" bill. That's certainly a better description for it than "JOBS," which was always a stretch. No votes are expected today, but a cloture vote on a substitute amendment is set for Tuesday.

And though there's nothing on the schedule about them yet, the agreement on the judicial nominations was that another seven would come to the floor for votes before the upcoming April recess. That's in two weeks, so I'd expect to perhaps see a few of those nominations in the latter half of this week.

Full floor and committee schedules are below the fold.

Recapping yesterday's action:

The House was not in session today. They return to DC from their recess next week.

The Senate delivered as expected on the transportation bill, finishing up work on the final two amendments and then passing the measure by a vote of 74-22. All it took was a month to get there.

The Senate's threatened judicial nomination cloture showdown failed to materialize yesterday, which on the whole is probably a good thing. Faced with the prospect of wasting an enormous amount of time on cloture (and more particularly, on post-cloture time) for a large number of non-controversial nominees, or alternatively, wasting an entire day and getting nowhere on any of it, Senators instead came to an agreement to take up 14 of the 17 nominations for which cloture motions are pending and complete consideration of them by mid-May.

What happens to the other three? I don't know.

What do Republicans get in exchange for allowing the votes to go forward? Immediate consideration of the not-even-all-that-interesting "JOBS Act," which the Senate schedule lists under its original designation, the "Capital Formation" bill.

According to the above-linked article, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was very keen on getting this thing to the floor, apparently because it had the acronym "JOBS" in the title. But as you'll recall from discussion of the bill when it was in the House last week, it's really not much of a jobs bill. It's more of a minor financial market deregulatory bill (and don't we all just really love those?), and the "JOBS" tag was slapped on it as something of an afterthought.

You may also remember that the bill passed in the House with broad, bipartisan support, and that that was the case largely because much of the bill was comprised of similar measures that had already been passed in the House previously, also with broad, bipartisan support.

So that fact—not mentioned in the WaPo piece—puts a little bit of a different spin on the McConnell complaint that Senate Dems were stalling on the bill, and instead creating "a manufactured crisis" over judicial nominations, instead. The crisis—which includes 80+ judicial vacancies on the federal bench, exacerbated by these mass filibusters—is real enough. And who else can you blame for the delay caused by considering the same bills twice in the House, but the House's Republican leadership?

But that didn't make the cut in the article. You had to come here for that.

Looking ahead to today:

Uh... well, I sort of gave it all away in the recap section, but the Senate will take up H.R. 3606, that misnamed capital formation bill currently wearing the "JOBS Act" disguise. It's unclear whether they'll have much to say about it at this point, since it flew through the House (twice) with relative ease. The Senate, of course, can throw a monkey wrench into anything, so you never really know. But it's entirely possible that they could move the bill through with minimal debate.

At 1:45, they'll move into executive session to take up the first two of the 14 agreed-upon judicial nominations which, from the looks of the schedule ("15 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled between Senators Leahy and Grassley"), appear ready to sail through without difficulty.

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

Recapping yesterday's action:

The House is not in session this week.

But what a day in the Senate! Twenty-three amendments were pending to the transportation bill yesterday morning. Ten of them got roll call votes, and all but one (Bingaman Amdt. No. 1759; To remove privatized highways from consideration in apportioning highway funding among States) were rejected. Along the way, several were withdrawn, or adopted by voice vote. But the upshot is that they did manage to get through the bulk of the transportation bill yesterday, and they're poised to finish up today.

With the giant stack of votes looming, there were a few references in the press to a "vote-a-rama" yesterday. In case you were wondering why I went with "vote-a-palooza" instead, it's because "vote-a-rama" is actually a term that's used to describe the situation that often arises at the end of consideration of a budget resolution. Because budget debates are time limited by statute to 50 hours in the Senate, the final hours are often spent racing through whatever amendments are still left pending at the end, with little or no debate. The result is often similar to what we saw yesterday, but I elected to go with another term, since this stack of votes was something they agreed to under a unanimous consent request. If you bring it on yourself, it gets a different name, I say.

Looking ahead to today:

The Senate, as mentioned above, is poised to actually complete consideration of the transportation bill today. The last series of votes, expected to begin at 11:30 this morning, will wrap up the last two pending amendments, and then a vote on final passage.

It's later on in the day when things are likely to get a little more interesting. Seventeen cloture motions on judicial nominations are pending, and it appears that the leadership is determined to plow through them one after the other until they either succeed with one of them or run out of motions. At 2:00 today, the Senate will go into executive session to consider the first of the pending nominations. A motion to go to executive session for the purpose of considering a specific nomination is non-debatable, so they can get to the debate without having to overcome a filibuster on a motion to proceed. But you still need to get 60 votes to invoke cloture on the nominations themselves, so it could well be that we'll watch cloture fail on all 17 nominations, one after the next. If cloture fails on one nomination, the next pending cloture motion is eligible for consideration immediately afterward. But if any of the cloture motions succeed, then the underlying nomination becomes the pending business and remains the only pending business until it's resolved by a vote, no more than 30 hours after cloture is invoked. What's the 30 hours for? Well, in the case of a nomination, nothing at all. It's just a pure waste of time. Post-cloture time on legislative matters allows time for consideration of amendments. But, of course, you can't amend a nomination. So if enough Republicans are feeling feisty, everyone has to sit on their hands for 30 hours and wait. Frankly, invoking cloture on the first and maybe second nomination, and then using up the entire post-cloture clock each time would probably be a lot more painful than racing through 17 cloture votes and defeating them all.

But I'm not suggesting that.

That would make people realize there really ought to be some filibuster reform. And that, as we know, is crazy hippie talk.

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

Recapping yesterday's action:

The House was not in session yesterday. They return from recess next week.

The Senate was in session, but not so's you'd notice. Just a little unanimous consent housekeeping, though that did include a resolution congratulating the Girl Scouts (aka, the "tactical arm of Planned Parenthood") on its 100th anniversary. That, and the initiation of the Rule XIV process on the so-called "JOBS Act," and a DeMint measure prohibiting enforcement of certain provisions of the Americans With Disabilities Act with regard to public swimming pools. Don't know exactly what that's about, but it sounds pretty DeMinty.

Oh, yes, one more thing. Harry Reid filed for cloture on 17 judicial nominations yesterday. Most of the nominees have been waiting an average of about six months, though one, John J. Tharp, Jr., has technically been waiting since July of 2008, when he was first nominated by George W. Bush. With just a few months left in Bush's term, and even less time left in the Senate's working session, his nomination expire without action. His renomination by President Obama apparently stems from a tradition among Illinois Senators permitting a Senator from the party in opposition to a sitting president to make recommendations for one of every three federal judicial vacancies.

The great tyrant Obama has very Hitlerishly agreed to go ahead with this nomination.

Those cloture motions will ripen for votes on Wednesday. So that'll be exciting. Maybe.

Looking ahead to today:

The Senate makes up for the slow Monday with a long, long list of expected votes on the long-delayed transportation bill today. Twenty-three amendments, to be exact. And depending on the conditions of the agreement that brought us to this point, they just might actually be able to get through them all. It's not uncommon for them to tackle a list like this by allowing only two minutes of debate per amendment.

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

Recapping Last Week in Congress

Two real whoppers in the House last week: the "Bureau of Reclamation Small Conduit Hydropower Development and Rural Jobs Act," and the "Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act." Basically, two deregulatory bills with the word "jobs" tacked onto them.

That's a pretty low bar to match for the Senate, but they actually managed to do less, at least in terms of finishing bills. In fact, other than minor unanimous consent measures, the one and only substantive bill on the floor last week still didn't make it through to final passage. It's certainly not unusual for the Senate not to be able to wrap up a major bill in a week. But this transportation bill, supposedly a triumph of bipartisanship, has been on the floor for over a month now, and it wasn't until the middle of last week that a deal finally got worked out to get around a Republican filibuster. And so we ended last week in the Senate with votes on eight of 30 proposed amendments to this bipartisan marvel.

This Week in Congress

This week, the House definitely wins the award for doing the least. Because they're not gonna be there. It's another recess week on the House side.

The Senate will be in session, but no votes are expected until Tuesday. The pending business is still the transportation bill, and they'll be returning to that today. So far, all the amendments offered have been subject to "painless filibusters," allowing things to move forward by imposing a 60-vote requirement for passage directly on each amendment, instead of dealing with all the delays that come along with the 60-vote requirement you'd have to overcome anyway in invoking cloture.

I'd certainly anticipate more of the same this week, and probably with similar results (no amendments are passing, but Budget Act points of order against the bill are being waived). The fact that points of order are being waived seems to indicate that there's still some remnant of the bipartisanship once said to be behind this bill, after all. Which means that the filibuster was largely a matter of Republican huffiness over the initial attempt to block "message" amendments that nobody thought would or should really pass in the first place. That's where we are with these guys.

Once again, nothing wrong with the Senate rules. Everybody look away!

Full floor and committee schedules are below the fold. But I warn you, there's not much there yet.

Recapping yesterday's action:

An otherwise quiet and unremarkable day in the House turned into something of a show yesterday, when Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA-04) turned it loose on Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX-05). During the debate on the opportunistically-renamed "Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act," Frank told a story of what was, ultimately, a rather routine sort of Capitol Hill intrigue, but did it with enough personal invective to get his words "taken down."

What happened? Well, it seems one of the components of what's now known as the "JOBS Act" is pretty much identical to a bill passed in an almost unanimous vote by the House last November. Only when it was passed the first time, it was introduced by Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ-05), and backed, according to the Politico article linked above, by Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT-04). Only this second time around, the provision was ostensibly authored by Rep. Ben Quayle (R-AZ-03), with whom Schweikert is currently engaged in a redistricted primary fight. Although both this measure and the larger bill are both expected to have bipartisan support this time around, Frank took umbrage at the move to give credit for the work already done by Schweikert and Himes to Quayle, and in the process insulted Hensarling, who in turn had Frank's words taken down. Yeehaw!

Despite the disruption, the House managed to get through 10 of the 17 amendments made in order under the rule, holding roll call votes on (and defeating) just four of them.

The Senate, still stuck on the transportation bill that was ironically going nowhere, held no roll call votes, and managed only to take care of a few housekeeping items under unanimous consent, including a tribute to the life of the late Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ-10). Worthy of some note: Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) initiated the Rule XIV process for his "National Right to Work Act." That by itself doesn't mean it's going anywhere, but it's worth watching. Remember, Republicans are for leaving these sorts of policies to the states, unless they don't feel like it anymore, in which case it's totally awesome to federalize everything, in that small-government way.

Looking ahead to today:

Today, the House looks to wrap up consideration of the last seven amendments to the JOBS-as-an-afterthought bill and be done by 1pm, before heading out of town for yet another week-long recess. Whew!

The Senate, it seems, has at last found a path out of the transportation filibuster, and the leadership says they have an agreement to hold a series of votes on amendments today. Whether they'll complete consideration and get to a vote on passage today, or stretch it out into Friday remains to be seen. The Senate has no plans to break along with the House, however, so even if work on the transportation bill drags out a bit longer than expected, the light at the end of the tunnel is at least visible. That's a little transportation joke there for you. Hiyo!

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

Recapping yesterday's action:

The House considered its one scheduled suspension bill, before moving on to a resolution expressing the condolences of the House on the death of the Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ).

Afterwards, they began consideration of the Bureau of Reclamation Small Conduit Hydropower Development bill. Although considered under a modified open rule, only three amendments came to the floor yesterday, two handled by voice vote, and one for which the vote was postponed to today.

The Senate was unable to invoke cloture on the transportation bill (actually a Reid substitute amendment that would have had the effect of blocking out most other amendments). The vote actually came out worse this time. The first attempt at cloture failed 54-42. This time it "lost," 52-44.

They did succeed in confirming the two judges on the docket today, however. Both with overwhelming majorities.

Looking ahead to today:

Today, the House is slated to complete its consideration of the scintillating Bureau of Reclamation bill, and then turn to the so-called "Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act." I say so-called, because up until this week, this bill was known as the "Reopening American Capital Markets to Emerging Growth Companies Act," which gives a better hint as to what it's really all about. But someone decided Republicans had to do something that at least sounded job-related, if only to get themselves out of jumping off the birth control cliff. So here we are, with a financial market deregulation bill renamed "JOBS." And a plateful of 17 amendments, with which I expect they will close out the week tomorrow, before heading out of town for yet another recess.

Meanwhile, it's back to the drawing board for the Senate, in search of some way to get the transportation bill unstuck after a month on the floor. This is, let's recall, a bill that passed with bipartisan, unanimous support in committee. And yet we're now passing the one month mark on this filibuster. Which, I'll note, I don't see a whole lot of people actually calling a filibuster.

But there's nothing wrong with Senate rules. La la la!

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

Recapping yesterday's action:

The House very nearly broke a sweat yesterday, with a grueling two-hour debate and voting schedule. Between 5 and 7 pm last evening, they debated three suspension bills naming federal buildings and a post office, passing two by voice vote, and one in a 362-2 cliffhanger. Then, in a stunning display of ambition, they also passed on voice vote two resolutions authorizing preparations for the next inaugural ceremonies in 2013.

The Senate held no roll call votes yesterday, but passed the day with some unanimous consent housekeeping, and the initiation of the Rule XIV process for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act passed by the House last week.

Looking ahead to today:

Today in the House, one more suspension bill, and then the start of debate on the Bureau of Reclamation Small Conduit Hydropower Development, and Oh Yeah, Totally a Bunch of Rural Jobs Act. You can tell they really mean it!

You might not normally think that the debate of a pretty narrowly-focused bill like this would take all day, but it's one of the few bills actually coming to the floor with a relatively open rule for debate, which means they don't really know how many amendments are going to be offered (they need only be printed in the Congressional record a day ahead of time), and the debate will be open for members to use pro forma amendments to claim extra debate time, as well. That means that if you flip on C-SPAN, you might catch members making motions "to strike the last word," and being granted five minutes of debate time for doing so. When they're operating under open rules, any amendment can get five minutes of debate time. "Striking the last word" technically means deleting the last word of the previously pending amendment, thereby creating a new and different amendment for the purposes of debate, and renewing the five minute limit for a whomever made the motion. There's no actual vote on the amendment with the last word removed, so there's no problem there. It's just a mechanism for giving out extra debate time while still keeping some structure to things. The point is, nobody knows how long this will go on for. Sometimes people like to take advantage of the free debate. Other times, even free debate isn't enough to interest them. Like, perhaps, when the subject is Bureau of Reclamation Small Conduit Hydropower Development, for instance.

The Senate is slated to make another attempt to invoke cloture on a Reid substitute amendment to its transportation bill at 12:30 today. Has there been enough movement in the backroom dealing to get to 60 votes? Well, if its any indication, the day's schedule calls for an immediate break following the vote for the party caucus lunches, followed by the consideration of two judicial nominations when they return. So what do you think?

Truth is that they might just as well have scheduled things that way even if they thought they had the votes, though we might have expected to see the two judicial nominations taken care of first, if they thought they could spend the afternoon making progress on transportation. What's the holdup? Although there were 85 votes for cloture on the motion to proceed to the bill, Republicans were having too much fun offering things like the Blunt anti-contraception amendment, and presumably want to do more of the same before they'll agree to let the government build any roads and infrastructure. That, after all, could possibly lead to some economic benefits, which this president cannot be allowed to have. So instead, the Senate will bicker about whether or not they should be allowed to rifle through your medicine cabinet, for freedom. You know, so that the government doesn't come between you and your doctor.

So that's it. That's the day you're paying for in Congress. Enjoy!

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

Recapping Last Week in Congress

Last week, you may recall, was a real stinker in terms of productivity. In the House, that meant passage of two Republican bills (and the rejection of every single Democratic amendment to them): H.R. 2117, the "Protecting Academic Freedom in Higher Education Act," and H.R. 1837 - San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act. Though they did manage to work in a few suspension bills, and a resolution authorizing the compilation of oral histories from members who participated in the civil rights movement.

The Senate spent the week bogged down in the search for a deal to end a sorta-kinda-filibuster of the transportation authorization bill, and took care of odds and ends like confirming a single federal judge, authorizing an official Senate photograph, and declaring February 29th "Rare Disease Day."

This Week in Congress

Ready for this?

The House packs the schedule this week with four suspension bills, and the following blockbusters: 1) the "Bureau of Reclamation Small Conduit Hydropower Development and Rural Jobs Act," and; 2) the "Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act."

Well, partial credit to the Republicans for realizing that people would rather see them at least saying the word "jobs" than poking around in our medicine cabinets and/or underpants. That first bill, of course, looks like the J word was a bit of an afterthought, grafted onto the bill in desperation. The second one? Well, a meh of an acronym (we'll call it a 3 on the BANANA Scale), and I'm sure it'll shock you to learn that up until now, the bill had been titled the, "Reopening American Capital Markets to Emerging Growth Companies Act." So what's it really about? It's an attempt to roll back regulations around issuing securities in "emerging growth companies," and defining them as those with total annual gross revenues of less than $1 billion. So it's a Wall Street sop. Yay! "Jobs!"

What a load of crap. They're not even phoning it in anymore. They're texting.

In the Senate, no votes are scheduled for today, but action picks up again on Tuesday, with two judicial nominations and another attempt at cloture on the transportation bill. They got to 54 votes last week, with Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) absent for the vote. We'll see if having held a vote (sort of) on the obnoxious Blunt anti-birth control amendment satisfies anyone enough to loosen up and let the transportation bill go forward.

Full floor and committee schedules are below the fold.

</div>Recapping yesterday's action:

Less and less is happening on the floor every day. They're still going through the motions in the committees, with the appropriators and budget folks busily churning through their piles of paper in preparation for their busy season. But in the House yesterday, the only action was the party-line passage of the San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act (plus the party-line rejection of every single amendment to it), and then the passage on voice vote of one suspension bill.

In the Senate, the official business was the continued debate of the transportation bill, but as for what actually got done, er, ah... umm... well, they declared February 29th "Rare Disease Day." Which I guess is fitting, since February 29th is a rare day.

Looking ahead to today:

It gets no better.

The House convenes at 9:00 a.m., considers a resolution authorizing the House historian to compile oral histories from House members involved in the civil rights movements. A worthy undertaking, no doubt. Though you'd perhaps prefer to see it considered as an interlude between longer and more substantive stretches of work. Instead, it's a prelude only to two votes on suspension bills delayed from yesterday, and a last vote before the weekend anticipated between 10 and 11 a.m.

And in the Senate, yet more stumbling around on the transportation bill, only today's stumbling will be punctuated by a vote on the very obnoxious Blunt anti-contraception amendment. What a day.

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

Recapping yesterday's action:

Wow. "Action." Well, here's what happened, anyway. The House passed H.R. 2117, the "Protecting Academic Freedom in Higher Education Act," very predictably accepting every Republican amendment and rejecting every Democratic one along the way. What a barn-burner.

The Senate adopted S.Res.381, authorizing the taking of the official photograph of the Senate in the 112th Congress on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at 2:15pm in the Chamber of the U.S. Senate. How about that? And they did it while ostensibly debating (but not taking any votes on) the transportation bill.

Looking ahead to today:

The House takes up three suspensions today. It's a little unusual to have more suspensions on Wednesday than you had on Monday or Tuesday, but there it is. The rest of the day goes to the San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act and its nine pending amendments. Hoo-wee!

Meanwhile, the Senate... plans to resume debate of the transportation bill. Again. I haven't seen any indication that they've filed for cloture again, so they must seriously be looking for some kind of deal to change the landscape. But it's already Wednesday, and you normal, everyday working folks know what that means. The weekend's coming!

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

Recapping yesterday's action:

Slow day in the House yesterday, during which they took up only one of the two suspension bills scheduled for they day. After using just 30 of the 40 minutes allotted for debate of the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act, they were on to the vote (388-3—go Amash, you crazy bastard!) and then done for the day. Whew!

The Senate confirmed Margo Kitsy Brodie's nomination to the United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York by a vote of 86-2 (go DeMint, you crazy bastard!).

Looking ahead to today:

The House starts today's work with the suspension bill it never got to yesterday, after spending a back-breaking thirty minutes on the day's schedule. Then, it's on to the Orwellian business of the day, the "Protecting Academic Freedom in Higher Education Act." That doesn't sound good, does it? The CRS summary of the bill says it:

Repeals certain Department of Education regulations that for purposes of determining whether a school is eligible to participate in programs under the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA): (1) require institutions of higher education and postsecondary vocational institutions (except religious schools) to be legally authorized by the state in which they are situated, (2) delineate what such legal authorization requires of states and schools, and (3) define "credit hour."

Hmm. Wow. I'm not attuned closely enough to education policy to know exactly what that means, but it certainly sounds to me like requiring institutions of higher education to be legally authorized by the state in which they are situated is a reasonably good thing. But hey, maybe not! Maybe being legally authorized is oppressing "academic freedom" after all! I'm sure it's nothing a transvaginal ultrasound "Female Freedom Foto" or two couldn't fix, though. But I guess we'll find out.

As for the Senate, well, the best they can manage for today is this:

The Senate may resume consideration of S.1813, the Surface Infrastructure bill, during Tuesday’s session.

May resume. Hoo boy. No need for reform here. Move along.

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

(Are you noticing how many meetings the House Appropriations subcommittees are having? That's a hallmark of budget season.)

Recapping Last Week in Congress

Pop quiz! You write last week's recap! Ready? Go!

Just kidding! There was no last week in Congress. There was a last week, of course, but nobody spent it in Congress.

Yes, yes, I heard you in the back, saying there were pro forma sessions. Shut up. Nerd.

This Week in Congress

And the House really comes roaring back into action this week, with a measly four suspension bills, a very nice resolution on the civil rights movement, and two bills hardly anyone has heard much about. The first is another of those Orwellian-sounding deals, the "Protecting Academic Freedom in Higher Education Act." The second sounds like a bit of a snoozer, title-wise: the "San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act." You probably shouldn't let yourself be lulled by the boring-sounding name, though. For one thing, water rights have been an almost single-minded focus for the bill's sponsor, the otherwise mostly invisible Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA-21). For another, water rights are deadly serious business in the West, and people fight dirty about them. So although it sounds like a bit of a sleeper, I'd be keeping an eye out for the nitty gritty details as they become available.

Besides, what the hell else are you going to do? Aside from the anticipated (but as-yet-unscheduled) return to the transportation bill, there's nothing else to watch. Any energy this 112th Congress has left in it is likely to be poured into the budget, and later, the appropriations bills, before they look to cut out early and hit the campaign trail. Floor time in a do-nothing Congress that already has one eye on adjournment and no hope of serious compromise on a budget just might never really get exciting, unless Republicans resolve to fill it with designed-to-fail political plays. And this week, I guess they're fresh out.

The Senate schedule for today is pretty light. A reading of Washington's Farewell Address, a little break, and then a vote on a district court judicial confirmation. No word yet on the particulars for the rest of the week, but regular Senate watchers know that's not at all unusual. When we last left off, the Senate had failed to invoke cloture on the Reid amendment #1633 (Banking, Finance, & Commerce titles) to S.1813, the Surface Transportation bill. So that's likely where they'll pick up, and keep debating while negotiations continue in the background in search of a deal that can yield six more votes for cloture, which I'm sure they're hoping to vote on by Wednesday, unless they can get a unanimous consent deal earlier.

Full floor and committee schedules are below the fold.

Recapping yesterday's action:

The House completed work on the POISONEERS Act, finishing up with an unbroken record of accepting every single Republican amendment, while rejecting every single Democratic one.

The Senate kept its transportation bill on the floor for debate, while running out the clock on ripening the cloture motions on both the bill and the Furman judicial nomination, but held no roll call votes. John Cornyn (R-TX) managed to initiate the Rule XIV process for his "Health Care Bureaucrats Elimination Act," though. That should be a treat.

Looking ahead to today:

The House returns for a half-day (or less) for consideration of the conference report on the payroll tax cut extension. Finally! But that's all that's expected.

The Senate is slated to take a cloture vote on the transportation bill, but the cloture motion on the Furman nomination was vitiated by unanimous consent, and they'll go right to a confirmation vote following the highway bill. If they can wrap that up quickly, the hope is that they too can dispense with the conference report on the payroll tax cut extension, a.k.a, the "Tax Relief and Job Creation Act."

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

Recapping yesterday's action:

The House took up the first of the three-part package that will end up comprising its transportation authorization bill, that being H.R. 3408, the PIOSNGEERS Act, which they're pretending is the "PIONEERS Act." Twenty amendments were made in order under the rule, and the House dealt with 12 of them. Three, offered by Republicans, were passed on voice vote. One other, offered by a Republican, passed in a roll call vote. Eight more, all offered by Democrats, were mysteriously defeated in recorded votes.

The Senate continued its usual wrangling today. After being forced to run out the full 30 hours of post-cloture time on a judicial nomination on which cloture was invoked by a vote of 89-5, they were finally able to vote on confirmation, which passed by 94-5. On this, they could not agree to waive post-cloture time.

The rest of the day was spent maneuvering on the transportation bill, and in the current climate it should come as no surprise that Majority Leader Harry Reid has filled the amendment tree, which has the effect of blocking other amendments—possibly including the Blunt anti-contraception amendment—from being offered on the floor. Republicans will scream their heads off, but the Senate transportation bill is said to have struck a rather delicate bipartisan balance that would likely only be upset by annoyance amendments. And really, given that we just watched them waste 30 hours (plus the day it took for cloture to ripen) on a judicial nomination that was confirmed 94-5, it's pretty clear that the Republican troublemakers aren't feeling any particular pressure to behave like adults.

Just to hammer the point home, Reid has had to file for cloture on yet another judicial nomination, this time on that of Jesse Furman, to be U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York. Up to now, under the informal agreement following the filibuster reform fight a year ago, we have not typically been seeing cloture filings on district court judges. I'm not sure if this signals a breakdown in relations, the end of the list of "non-controversial" judicial appointments, or just a short-term Republican reaction to the blocking of amendments on the transportation bill.

Looking ahead to today:

The House will wrap up work on POISONEERS, or whatever it's called, with eight more amendments up for votes today. Actually, POISONEERS isn't a bad name at all for this monstrosity, which includes such perennial Gop favorites as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, plus the new darling: expedited Keystone XL pipeline approval.

The Senate continues to make its way through its version of the transportation bill, while they wait for the clock to run down on ripening the cloture motion on it, and on the next pending judicial nomination. That means there likely won't be any voting today, unless some deals are struck. Perhaps Senators will offer Republicans some free rope to hang themselves with on contraception. Who knows? But absent that, we can expect today to be spent "debating" the bill, with cloture votes to come on Friday. Then, another opportunity to take the temperature of the Senate, as we watch to see whether Republicans insist on running out the post-cloture clock, too. With a recess planned for the week of President's Day, we'll see whether the desire to avoid a weekend session loosens things up a bit.

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

Recapping yesterday's action:

A light first work day of the week, as usual, for the House. Three suspensions were scheduled and debated, with votes postponed, but the House adjourned late last night without holding votes on any of them.

The Senate likewise held no roll call votes, though it had been hoped they'd reach agreement for an early vote on a pending judicial nomination on which they'd invoked cloture on Monday. But there's no accommodation to be had from the Gop on any nomination higher than the district courts, it seems, so after invoking cloture by 89-5, they still had to run out the full 30 hours of post-cloture time.

Looking ahead to today:

Some kind of shenanigans kept the House from posting today's schedule last night, but there's not all that much they could be up to today besides holding the postponed suspension votes from yesterday, and then moving on to a rule for the transportation bill, followed immediately by the bill itself.

What is it that was holding things up last night? Well, they can't really set the schedule until they know what the rule setting the terms for debate is going to be. And I noticed that the Rules committee was reconvening at 10 p.m., after having first met five hours earlier to hammer out that rule. So there's definitely some kind of nonsense going down. I suppose that's to be expected, with this transportation bill being called "the worst" and "the most partisan I've ever seen," by Transportation Secretary and former Republican Congressman Ray LaHood.

Part of the problem may have been that the pay-fors aren't quite working out the way Republicans had hoped. They were originally rolling two other bills up into the transportation bill, as a method of covering its costs. But the offsetting bills are unpopular and/or not all they're cracked up to be. First, there's H.R. 3813, the "Securing Annuities for Federal Employees Act." Students of Republican Orwellianism will instantly sniff this one out as a cut to federal employee pensions. Then there's H.R. 3408, the "Protecting Investment in Oil Shale the Next Generation of Environmental, Energy, and Resource Security Act." That's PIOSNGEERS to those of us with eyes and brains, but is called PIONEERS by Republicans, despite the fact that most of them have eyes. An easy 9 on the BANANAS (Bad Acronym and Nomenclature Assessment Scale). Anyway, the CBO isn't convinced that PIOSNGEERS really pays for what it claims, and the jobs sponsors claim it will create are likely more than ten years out on the horizon. Those problems appear to have been at the root of last night's delays.

As of this morning, the Majority Leader's office had a schedule up (posted after midnight), but the Minority Whip's office hadn't caught up yet. That's the prerogative that comes with setting the schedule. You get the info well before the other side. In the light of day, it appears they've decided to consider the pay-for bills separately, rather than rolling them up into H.R. 7, the transportation bill. Just as well, since there really wasn't much more on the schedule for this week, and considering three separate bills gives them something to do until Friday. That helps things, because otherwise knocking off early before yet another week-long recess just doesn't look good.

The Senate starts out immediately with a vote on the Jordan nomination, and plans to proceed afterwards to their own version of the transportation bill—this one getting far more favorable reviews from Secretary LaHood.

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

Recapping yesterday's action:

My favorite recaps are for days like yesterday in the House. Observe: the House was not in session.

The Senate came to work, though, and they even made a little headway. Very little. But it counts. They invoked cloture on the nomination of Adalberto Jose Jordan to be United States Circuit Judge for the 11th Circuit.

Looking ahead to today:

First day of the work week for the House, so there won't be any voting until... well, until most normal people have gone home from work. And as usual, the first work day comes with a light schedule: three suspension bills, all naming post offices. Two for Marines killed in Iraq.

The Senate resumes consideration of the Jordan nomination, post-cloture, and if they're able to get an agreement to hold the vote sooner than the 30-hour mark, they can wrap that up and get back to the transportation bill.

It's a pretty quiet day on the floors, despite the fact that the President's budget arrived on Capitol Hill yesterday. For as much of our attention as the budget process consumes, the reality is that the President's budget—any President's budget—just isn't really central to the action. Budget day on the Hill is about putting out (mostly rote) press releases about the general tenor of the document, mixed with a few trite flourishes, depending on which side you're on ("step in the right direction" versus "dead on arrival"). Floor schedules aren't likely to reflect the new budget cycle for some months to come, so you wouldn't expect to see much difference in the day-to-day floor activity, even with as much media attention as budget submissions often get. Today's splash seemed perhaps a little less than normal, but the truth is that the action just doesn't take place out on the floor. The real doing is in the committees, and in the committee staff offices, at that.

In the meantime, floor watchers will have to be content with the various sideshows.

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

Recapping Last Week in Congress

The House had a relatively productive week, insofar as this House can be productive at all. Meaning that the House passed a fair number of bills that have a dim future (at best) in the Senate. So does that really count as productive? No, not really. But all I can do is tell you what they did. And they did do things.

There was the "Civilian Property Realignment Act" (discussed here), the "Expedited Legislative Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act," the "Budget and Accounting Transparency Act" (see the Dem Whip's Office description here), and the House tweak of the STOCK Act.

The Senate had, as is typical, a much lower volume of activity last week, passing the FAA reauthorization (with the controversial anti-union provisions), invoking cloture on the motion to proceed to the surface transportation bill, and confirming the appointment of Cathy Ann Bencivengo to the United States District Court for the Southern District of California.

This Week in Congress

The Iraq War may be over, but we're not done with the fallout. Two of the three post office naming bills to be considered in the House this week honor Marines killed in the war.

The balance of the week will be spent on H.R. 7—yes, 7—the "American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act." It's the House version of the surface transportation bill the Senate is expected to take up this week. I'm not hearing great things about these bills, and I've noticed that House Republicans are pushing their bill with the sort of lofty rhetoric typically reserved for a real dog of a bill, so as Wednesday draws nearer, we'll look to get a clearer picture of what kind of $#*% sandwich this thing really is.

After that, all they've got ready to go is more wrangling over the payroll tax cut extension, which is still in conference, even as the current extension's sunset date draws near.

The Senate kicks off the work week today (unlike the House, which won't be in until Tuesday) with consideration of the nomination of Adalberto Jose Jordan to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

And... that's as far as we can go with the Senate's schedule. It's expected, though, that they'll be moving forward with the surface transportation bill this week, having invoked cloture on the motion to proceed to it last week, and then agreed to the motion itself by unanimous consent.

Full floor schedules are below the fold. No committee meetings are scheduled for today.