Recapping yesterday's action:

The House got things off to a rip-roaring start by awarding Congressional Gold Medals to Raoul Wallenberg, and... Jack Nicklaus.

The Senate confirmed a judicial nomination today, and a circuit court judge at that, by an overwhelming vote. So that's a good thing. Later, however, they fell nine votes short on cloture on the motion to proceed to the "Paying a Fair Share Act." That is to say, they had a majority of 51, but as we know, the Senate hamstrings itself on these things, and requires 60 votes to agree to end debate on whether or not to begin debate on a bill that would tax bazillionaires more than bus drivers.

Looking ahead to today:

Well, there's no real chance that there's ever going to be a budget passed this year, so the House might as well spend their time on the euphemistically-named "Sportsmen's Heritage Act." I don't know why Republicans still feel the need to hide behind the "sportsman" dodge. Why not just admit that the bill demands opening up all federal land to fishing and hunting, and allows people to import polar bear parts (yes, parts) "harvested" (by shooting them) in Canada? Is that embarrassing? More so than the rest of the crap they usually spend their time on, and are happy to cop to? I don't know. I don't get these guys. Whatever.

But here's the best part! Late last night, they decided to use the rule for the bill to bury The Return of the Son of Zombie "Demon Pass!" I'm so old, I remember when Republicans thought this was the worst thing ever, and that Democrats who contemplated using the procedure ought to be impeached and tried as traitors. Of course, I'm also old enough to remember that this is the second year in a row that Republicans have used this on the budget.

Oh, and they'll also be honoring Lena Horne and Mark Twain with a Congressional Gold Medal and a commemorative coin, respectively. So, great.

The Senate takes a roundabout procedural path to a relatively simple day. They'll be voting on a motion to proceed to the postal reform bill. That's Joe Lieberman's baby, so maybe this will get him over his Buffett Rule temper tantrum. You may recall that this is actually the second attempt at cloture on the motion to proceed to this bill. The last one failed back at the end of march, and procedure nuts (like you, if you're reading this) will enjoy noting that they actually come to the vote today by way of making and then agreeing to deem adopted both a motion to proceed to a motion to reconsider the motion to proceed, and that underlying motion to reconsider. That puts us right back at a vote on the motion to proceed to the bill itself. Cool, huh? Isn't that just, like, so sensible and stuff? Seriously, though, I know it sounds completely bonkers, but you don't just automatically get to redo a vote just because someone feels like it. You've got to make a motion and get agreement to it in order to make something the pending business.

Anyway, that leaves the Senate in a position to give this postal reform bill another go. Yeah, your regular newspaper could have told you that in a quarter of the time and print space, but then you wouldn't have this throbbing headache. And what fun would that be?

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

Recapping Last Week in Congress

Easy: Congress has been in recess for the past two weeks. When we last left off, though, the House had passed the latest crazy Ryan budget, the Senate had failed to invoke cloture on the oil subsidy repeal, and everybody hurried through a temporary transportation extension to keep the wheels turning.

This Week in Congress

We're back in... uh... business, I guess. But it sure doesn't feel like much is happening. And that might be because there isn't much. Certainly not as much as should be happening. Both houses do return to DC today, but the House schedule is mostly tribute bills and the like. By the end of the week, they'll get around to passing yet another transportation extension bill, and then to H.R. 9, an Eric Cantor bill that... well, you'll never guess what it does! OK, it's a corporate tax cut! You got me! H.R. 9, though. They sure took their sweet time getting around to this thing. You'd think they'd have been in more of a rush to get to a tax cut, you know?

The Senate, too, is back in DC. And if the Senate's back, we can't be too far from a cloture vote. We'll get one today (on the motion to proceed to the "Paying a Fair Share Act," aka the Buffett Rule bill), but only after the next in the slow and drawn out series of judicial confirmation votes agreed to in the weeks before the break. Beyond that, we can't guess where the Senate is going this week. If they manage to get cloture on the Fair Share bill, that could well occupy the rest of the week, since cloture today only gets us to the start of debate, and really only to a time limit for the end of debate on whether or not to begin debate on the bill, at that. Somewhere along the line, we'll have to see the transportation extension coming before the House brought before the Senate, too.

And hey, keep in mind that there's another recess coming up in two weeks.

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

There is no "today" in Congress. Everybody's gone, and they're not coming back for two weeks.

Well, they'll be holding some pro forma sessions, but that's all.

So all I've got for you today is the recap. I don't always bother coming back with a recap on days with no session, but it might be worth noting how they left things heading into this lengthy break.

So...

Recapping yesterday's action:

The House limped its way into yet another temporary solution for the expiring transportation authorization, approving a 90-day extension under regular order (that is, normal procedure, as opposed to suspension of the rules, at which they tried and failed earlier this week).Interesting move they made, though, which was to vacate the previous order for a roll call vote on the suspension version of the extension bill, then call for a new roll call vote, and then vote on it and let it fail. I can understand why they'd want to dispense with the bill and get it off the calendar, but I'm not entirely sure why they wanted to vacate the existing order for the vote. Unless it had to do with the fact that they were voting on a suspension motion on a Thursday, which is normally against the rules, and they'd granted themselves a waiver to cover it, but needed a fresh motion to make it work. Just guessing, though. The prospect of doing the research in the wee hours of the morning for such a small point is... less than enticing.

Anyway, the focus next returned to the insanity of the Republican budget, which also passed (to no one's surprise), despite ten Gop defections.

Ordinarily, you'd think I'd have more to say about the fact that a budget resolution had been passed. But since nobody in the Senate intends to agree to it, I don't know that I'm going to waste the time.

The Senate saw cloture fail (51-47) on the oil subsidies bill. And just as predictably, caved on the transportation bill, accepting the House's extension bill by voice vote.

Finally, because there's a recess coming, the Senate went out with its usual last-minute spasm of executive business, giving their approval to a lengthy list of lower level and sometimes obscure appointments, which curiosity seekers may review below the fold.

I don't know why they do things this way. They just do.

Recapping yesterday's action:

The House made considerably better progress than I expected on the budget yesterday (though that budget is considerably worse than almost anyone is willing to believe). But for the moment, I'll stick to the procedural facts. Chief among them is that yesterday's predicted schedule had the last votes being taken some time between 2 and 3 p.m., which led me to believe they wouldn't be doing any voting on budget alternatives until today. That turned out not to be the case, and they actually debated four of the six permitted substitutes, and voted on three (rejecting them all).

Oh, by the way, the House also had on the schedule another possible attempt at voting to pass the transportation extension under suspension of the rules. They nixed that again, though.

The Senate confirmed its meager allotment of two judges yesterday, with one of the nominees—Miranda Du, in the District of Nevada—approved by a vote of just 59-39. Just wanted to point out that something happened in the Senate without 60 votes, is all. The rest of the day was given over to waiting for the cloture motion on the oil subsidies bill to ripen, and debate on the motion to proceed to the Buffet Rule bill ("the Paying a Fair Act").

Looking ahead to today:

The House is slated to resume and complete consideration of the budget resolution today, with votes on the three remaining alternatives coming before the vote on final passage. Over the past few weeks, there's been occasional speculation that the Republicans were fractured enough within their conference that the Ryan budget might actually be in danger of not passing. But that seems a pretty serious stretch. As much and as often as we doubt the competence of the Republican leadership, bringing a budget to the floor that they weren't sure they could muscle through would be astonishingly reckless. By which I mean even more astonishingly reckless than usual, as when they nearly provoked default over the debt ceiling. Conventional wisdom: That would just never happen.

Also on the House schedule is that darned transportation bill they just can't seem to deal with. Only this time, they really do need to deal with it, because the existing program authorizations expire at the end of this month, and the Congress has one foot out the door on a two-week recess. The extension actually shows up twice on the schedule, once under regular order—meaning it'll have to come to the floor under a rule, but can pass with a simple majority—and once as a postponed suspension vote, which would require a 2/3 majority. Seems the plan is to go with regular order and pass it whether any Democrats join in support or not. That's the smarter play.

In the Senate, they're due for the cloture vote on the oil subsidies bill. But Republican opposition to clawing back money from oil companies is expected to just be too great to overcome. And the schedule gives that away. If cloture were successfully invoked on the oil subsidies bill, it'd become the exclusive pending business until it was disposed of. But as the schedule notes, they're going to need to deal with the transportation extension before breaking for recess, and that'll become something of a problem if they somehow find themselves stuck in post-cloture time on the oil subsidies bill, instead. (Though that might not be such a bad trade for a clean shot at passing it.)

Even if the cloture vote fails, though, the Senate will be in something of a bind on transportation. They really don't want to accept this short-term extension (of which there have already been seven during the 112th Congress, counting both surface transportation and aviation bills), and would much prefer that the House simply pass their version of the full authorization bill. But will they risk missing out on recess to make that point, by refusing or rejecting any extension sent to them by the House? Theoretically, they could do just that, and call on the House to return and pass the Senate bill rather than take off for recess. But it sure doesn't feel like that's going to happen. Again, remember when the Senate always used to dictate these things? Crazy, huh?

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

Recapping yesterday's action:

Once again, the House got through all of its announced schedule, save one curious item: the surface transportation extension bill. It was slated, as was the case on Monday, to come to the floor under suspension of the rules. And this time, at least, it did come. The bill was debated, and the vote was postponed to a later time (as is often the case with suspensions), but they never returned to the vote. It's now scheduled for today, and although postponing a vote until the next day isn't all that unusual either, you'd think they'd want to get this one over with. But instead, they decided to wait an extra day. Hmm.

Of some minor procedural interest: the House also considered and adopted by unanimous consent a resolution directing the Clerk to request that the Senate return the official papers (remember what they are?) on H.R. 5, the non-health "HEALTH" bill (the one that was mostly really just "tort reform"). No explanation was given during the brief consideration of the resolution, and no objection was raised, which leads me to believe it's a minor technical issue. But it also probably means someone screwed something up. So that's funny, and we all point and laugh.

Oh, the "substantive" business of the day was the FCC "reform" bill. They passed it.

And, uh... that's all I have to say about that. But there was something of interest in the motion to recommit the bill. Perhaps you've heard about the recent trend in hiring practices, wherein employers are demanding that job seekers surrender their Facebook passwords as part of their application process. Alarming, no? See? Having your rights violated at your place of employment (or even a prospective one) as a matter of policy isn't just for union members anymore! (At least union folks have a mechanism for fighting back.) Well anyway, the motion to recommit would have amended the FCC bill to ensure that the commission could adopt a rule prohibiting licensees from making such demands from their prospective employees.

Republicans killed it. Because of freedom.

The Senate also added a bit of procedural interest to an otherwise routine day. After invoking cloture on the motion to proceed to the Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act (by 92-4) on Monday, the motion itself was adopted by unanimous consent yesterday. But rather than actually proceed to that bill, the Majority Leader moved to the other pending cloture motion, on the motion to proceed to the postal reform bill. That motion failed, however, so they returned to the oil subsidy bill long enough for the Majority Leader to fill the amendment tree (to block other, unwanted amendments) and file a cloture petition that'll come due for a vote on Thursday. In the meantime, the Senate turned to a motion to proceed to consideration of the "Paying A Fair Share Act," a bill to establish minimum effective tax rates on high income earners. The "Buffet Rule" bill, if you will. And you'll never guess what happened! Harry Reid filed for cloture on that motion to proceed, too!

Looking ahead to today:

The House kicks off its consideration of the Paul Ryan (R-WI-01) budget today, plus take care of one more suspension bill and just maybe that transportation extension, too. The budget is slated for a total of seven hours of debate, and given that the schedule sets the beginning of legislative business for the day at noon, and the last expected votes of the day from 2-3 p.m., that means debate only on the budget today, with the voting pushed into tomorrow. Gotta go until at least Thursday if you're going to break for a two-week recess afterward, you know.

The Senate will be running down the clock on pending cloture votes today, with the pending floor business being the motion to proceed to the Buffet Rule bill. Then at 5 p.m., it'll be time for another two-vote payment on the judiciary branch installment plan. You can tell how much difference it has made to the country that the 14 judges on whom there is enough agreement to move forward are having the votes on their confirmation spaced out over a period of a month and a half, can't you? I knew you could. It's so obvious. "Country first!" as that guy what's-his-name used to say.

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

Recapping yesterday's action:

The House ran through four of its five planned suspension bills yesterday, but ended up pulling the curious one we noted in our last installment—the surface transportation extension bill. See, the Republican leadership probably figured at first that if they just extended current authorization levels for a little while, they'd get Democratic support for passing the bill quickly under suspension of the rules, which requires a 2/3 vote. But Dems wanted the House to take up the Senate-passed version instead. That's already been through the trial-by-fire of the Senate filibuster. Without any indication that there would be Dem support, the bill was doomed, and the Republicans pulled it from the floor. Not for long, it seems. But we'll deal with that down below, in our look ahead.

The Senate debated and then voted to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act. The vote was a whopping 92-4, which might make you wonder why they needed a cloture vote at all. Well, aside from the fact that even one objecting Senator can create a situation in which a cloture motion becomes necessary, there's also the fact that this is just the motion to end debate on the question of whether or not to begin debate on the bill. Yes, they really do that, and yes, despite the fact that they just voted 92-4 to end debate on beginning debate, there's no deal in place just yet to yield back the 30 hours of post-cloture time. They'll probably get that deal tomorrow, but it's not in place yet, which tells you at a minimum that they're likely to face a filibuster on the bill itself, and hints that the next vote on cloture, if any, probably won't be such a wipeout. It's looking like Republicans just didn't want to be seen as standing in the way of having the debate, but that doesn't mean they support the bill. They don't, and they'll come back tomorrow and cry about it being a tax hike, and the 92-4 margin will be but a distant memory.

Looking ahead to today:

The House starts off, or at least plans to, with another two suspensions. The first is a motion to concur in the Senate amendment to the IPO bill (which Republicans wish you would call the "JOBS Act," for some reason). And the second is another stab at the surface transportation extension, though it's not entirely clear how it will differ (if at all) from the one Republicans were forced to pull yesterday. All the schedule says about it is that it's "legislation related to H.R. 4239," which is yesterday's extender bill. It's simple enough to just say that it's H.R. 4239 again, but they're not saying that. So we'll expect something slightly different. In any case, it's a rather unusual way to present a scheduled item of business.

After they sort that out—and you should not rule out seeing the bill pulled again—it's on to the "Federal Communications Commission Process Reform Act." I'll give you one guess how the Republicans want to "reform" the FCC's process.

The Senate returns to the task of trying to run down the post-cloture clock on the motion to proceed to the Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act. Again, there's no agreement yet in place, so they might in fact waste the whole day on further debate on the fact that they voted to end debate on the question of whether or not to begin debate. I'll never tire of saying that.

They'll also take a brief break for weekly caucus luncheons and... the official photograph of the 112th Congress? I'll be damned! I could have sworn they did that last week! Huh. Well, I, uh... I guess not. Hey, you can't rush these things, right?

Today's floor and committee schedules appear below the fold. Note the gigantic list of Armed Forces commissions approved by unanimous consent yesterday. Always a sure sign of an upcoming recess.

Recapping Last Week in Congress

I suppose you could say that last week in the House was the calm before the storm. Just a few suspension bills, the procedural fun of the Accomack County, VA land transfer bill, and then the non-health "HEALTH" bill, which was mostly just a "tort reform" retread.

The Senate, in its plodding way, took the bulk of the week to get through the IPO bill masquerading under the title of the "JOBS Act," and after three cloture votes, finally sent it back to the House with the Merkley "crowdfunding" amendment. Then it was on to a quick fourth cloture vote on the STOCK Act and two district judge confirmations before breaking for the weekend.

This Week in Congress

The House kicks off with the typical raft of five suspensions on Monday, so I guess they found some more material to fill time with. Perhaps it's just the Judiciary Committee that's running low on suspension-worthy bills. This week it's the Financial Services Committee's turn, and they've got the usual number ready to go. That fifth one scheduled for today is unusual, though, and not just because it doesn't come from Financial Services. It's a patched-together surface transportation bill, meant to beat the upcoming expiration of the existing authorization, brought on by the House's inability to come up with a viable replacement. I haven't seen the details, but in these situations, they usually just throw their hands up and offer to continue current funding levels for some amount of time. The fact that their extension comes to the floor under suspension of the rules means they're either offering something like that, which would be relatively non-controversial, or that they just don't mind failing again, since a suspension bill requires a 2/3 vote to pass.

Later in the week, they'll try to complete work (also under suspension of the rules) on the amended IPO bill the Senate sent back last week, then squeeze in some kind of FCC reform bill, before moving on to... the budget. (Cue dramatic music: Dum, dum, DUUUMMMM!)

Yes, it's budget time.

And after that... recess time!

Seriously, what can be said about the budget "written" (to the extent that there's anything in it at all) by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI-01) that hasn't already been said? It's a train wreck of austerity measures designed to be just vague enough to give plausible deniability to the Republicans who have to vote for it. I'll leave the analysis for other posts, and maybe return to it later in the week. For now, all we really need to know is that it's coming, and it's a load of crap.

The Senate won't be seeing the budget this week, though. By the time the House delivers it up, everyone will be out the door for recess. And on the Senate side, that'll be a two week recess. But the name of the column is This Week in Congress, so we'll focus on that. This week starts with even more cloture voting, first on the motion to proceed to consideration of the "Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act," and failing that, another on the motion to proceed to the "21st Century Postal Service Act." And if that fails? Well, hell if I know. But they've got to find something to make the tension before the recess unbearable. It's tradition.

Full floor and committee schedules are below the fold.

Recapping yesterday's action:

The House spent the bulk of its day on the general debate portion of consideration of H.R. 5, the so-called (and poorly acronymed) "HEALTH" bill that's actually the old "tort reform" bill, with a little bit of ACA repeal thrown in for good measure. The Democratic Whip's schedule wryly identifies the bill by its original name, and somewhat less ridiculous acronym, calling it the "Protecting Access to Healthcare (PATH) Act." The rule governing debate had set aside six hours for this task, so that ate up the better part of the day. No votes were held on any of the pending amendments. The only other business for the day was the quick passage of two non-controversial measures (authorizing the use of the Capitol Rotunda for a Holocaust remembrance event, and a United States Marshals Service 225th Anniversary Commemorative Coin Act).

The Senate successfully invoked cloture on the IPO bill, by a vote of 76-22. That was it as far as roll call voting goes.

Looking ahead to today:

The House returns to work on the tort reform bill, looking to wrap up consideration of six pending amendments quickly enough to be able to start heading home for the weekend by mid-afternoon.

It's always amazing to note how the entire Capitol and all of Washington could be abuzz about developments in the upcoming budget fight, but you can never tell from the floor schedules that any such thing is happening. It's perfectly understandable, of course. The budget's just not on the floor, and we concentrate on daily floor activity in Today in Congress. And of course, you can tell when budget season begins by watching the committee schedules (the sudden explosion in Appropriations committee activity is the giveaway). But it's such a strange disconnect that I felt like I had to make some mention of it.

The Senate likewise turns back to the IPO bill for two more amendments, but actually has more work planned after that! They'll be voting on yet another cloture motion, this time to close out debate on a motion to concur in the House amendment to the STOCK Act, the anti-insider trading bill that passed some weeks ago. As was the case with the IPO bill, Senators had some tweaks they wanted to make (most notably the reinsertion of disclosure requirements for "political intelligence" firms), but Republican filibuster threats have instead put the Senate over a barrel, and they're forced to accept the House position instead. Again, it's remarkable to note that not that long ago, the filibuster rules were to blame for the Senate consistently running roughshod over the House.

Lastly, the Senate will also consider two more judicial nominations, under the terms of the agreement of last week to get a slate of 14 (out of an original 17) nominations through by mid-May.

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

Recapping yesterday's action:

The House made an otherwise boring day interesting with a little bit of procedural fun. The business of the day was the consideration of one suspension bill (regarding the sale of surplus federal real estate), and one bill under regular order that would remove the deed restrictions on a parcel of federal land in Accomack County, Virginia and give it over unrestricted to the county. Woohoo! Right?

Well, here's the thing. That parcel of land in Accomack County was given over to local control in the mid-1970s at no cost to the county, so long as it was used only for the purpose of public recreation. If the county sought to make non-conforming use of the land, the agreement was that ownership and control would revert back to the federal government. Now, the county wants to build an "aerospace technology park" nearby, meaning a "park" of the industrial kind (the site abuts an existing NASA installation), but needs the actual park land in order to pave it over with an access road for the technology park. And that would mean the land would revert back to the federal government, unless the feds transfer the deed to Accomack County, which they don't want to do.

That's where this bill comes in. The bill would force the transfer, regardless of the terms of the 1976 agreement, handing over an $816,000 piece of land to Accomack for free.

Now, it struck Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ-07) that this $816,000 windfall, being directed to Accomack County by its local Congressman, Rep. Scott Rigel (R-VA-02), seemed reasonably close to what some folks would call an earmark. $816,000 in free land, handed from the federal government to Accomack. And these days, we're told, the rules require certain disclosures with regard to earmarks and the members requesting them. More than just that, the rules also prohibit consideration of waivers of those rules. (That's how you know they're serious!) So Grijalva raised a point of order against consideration of the rule for the bill, which contained a blanket waiver of all points of order against the bill, including the point of order that would normally prohibit waiving the earmark rules.

But gosh, golly-gee, one thing the rules forgot was that you can always waive rules against waivers, and that's just what the Republicans did, voting unanimously to allow consideration of the rule and its blanket waiver, even though that meant they were waiving the rule that said no waivers were allowed.

I wish I were kidding.

There was just a little more fun to be had with this bill, though, as Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA-47) offered a motion to recommit the bill and add an amendment prohibiting the county from allowing their free gift land to be sold or used for the purposes of adult entertainment, or by foreign governments. But Republicans apparently weren't up for that restriction, either. So, Saudi Astro Porn it is! Congrats to all!

That last part I am kidding about. As far as I know.

Hmm? What? The Senate? Oh yeah, the Senate! Right! Well, the Senate held cloture votes on two alternative substitute amendments to the IPO deregulation bill (that Republicans are hoping you'll call the "JOBS Act"), neither of which succeeded. That leaves a cloture motion on the entire bill still pending, with debate resuming today. But no indication just yet of any intention to get to a vote on that cloture motion. Sounds like they're still hoping to find a path to 60 votes for a few tweaks to the bill.

Oh, and they had their picture taken.

Looking ahead to today:

The House jumps right into the cutting edge job creation stuff, with the start of debate on the tired, old horse of "tort reform." You know, the kind that would have prevented Rick Santorum's wife from winning so much money in her lawsuit against her chiropractor. (Don't worry, she didn't collect the $350,000 award. It was reduced, doubtless by some "activist judge" to $175,000.)

Of course, this bit of same-old, same-old is being sold under the acronym of "Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare," or HEALTH.

Duh.

With six hours of general debate scheduled, plus six amendments, they'll likely stretch this thing out into tomorrow, so they can at least say they worked until Thursday.

The Senate returns to debate of the IPO dereg bill, with no clear exit plan visible. That doesn't mean something can't be worked out, but so far, Senate Dems have been unable to muster the votes necessary to make the changes they say are necessary to prevent this from just being yet another overbroad regulatory repeal.

Hey, remember when the Senate rules were the reason why the House-passed version of bills always had to take a back seat to the versions the Senate preferred? Yeah, that was awesome. I wonder what happened to that?

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

Recapping yesterday's action:

An unusually light schedule for the House yesterday, even for a Monday. Just two suspension bills, only one of which even required a roll call vote (and which passed 371-0, anyway).

The Senate likewise had a slow Monday. No roll call votes were held. There was a super interesting technical correction made after-the-fact to the transportation bill, though! Nah, just kidding. It was boring. But it merits mention, if you're into that sort of weirdness. A unanimous consent agreement to change the text of a bill even though it already passed. Woo!

Looking ahead to today:

Just one suspension for the House today, and it's one that had been scheduled for floor action late last month, but never made it. So welcome back, "Excess Federal Building and Property Disposal Act." We missed you so.

Next up, it's a big day for Accomack County, Virginia, as H.R. 2087 seeks to compel the Secretary of the Interior to transfer the deed for some federal land there to the local government. Frankly, I'm surprised they're not calling this the "One Million Jobs for America Act."

The Senate has up to three cloture votes lined up for today. The pending business: H.R.3606, the IPO bill (which House Republicans prefer you call the "JOBS Act"). The first attempt will be to get cloture on a Reed-Landrieu-Levin substitute amendment. Failing that, they'll attempt cloture on a Cantwell-Johnson substitute instead. And failing that, straight up cloture on the whole bill. If any one of them gets the required 60 votes, it'll become the sole pending business for up to 30 hours, until it's disposed of. The bill was relatively non-controversial in the House, despite Barney Frank having his words taken down during the debate on it. But it's rarely worth trying to predict how cranky Senate Republicans are going to get about non-controversial items when there's a cloture vote involved. What I'm saying here is that this could sail right through even if one or both of the first two votes go down, or this could end up tying the Senate up for the rest of the week. Or anything in between. Which, once again, is why you almost never see the Senate scheduling floor activity more than a day or two in advance.

Following that series of votes (however many it turns out to be), it'll be time for a short recess for caucus meetings, and the much anticipated official photo of the 112th Congress! Yahoo!

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

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.