Congress Matters

Today in Congress: House kicks off short week after recess with yet another abortion bill

Thu, 31 May 2012 03:55:36 GMT

Recapping yesterday's action:

The House was not in session yesterday. As you know, many of us little people enjoyed a three-day holiday weekend, and were off from work on Monday. Congress, which is better than you, took a four-day weekend, and took off on Tuesday as well. Oh, and they were also in recess last week. Forgot about that.

The Senate is not in working session week, but held a pro forma session yesterday.

Looking ahead to today:

So yes, the House was not in session yesterday, but because today is the first work day of the week, it's regarded as a travel day for most Members. That means legislative work begins at 2 p.m., and any necessary votes will be delayed until 6:30 p.m, to give Members a chance to get back into town. How do you like that? The workweek begins on Wednesday afternoon and ends on Friday. That must be all that "run government like a business" stuff we're always hearing about.

Anyway, when they do get down to business today, it'll be to handle a slate of 12 suspension bills, most of which are usually non-controversial. Bills considered under suspension of the rules require a 2/3 vote to pass. That's why the procedure is typically used for non-controversial measures. But that's in a normal Congress. In Bizarro Congress, the week begins with a highly controversial bill, the pretentiously-named "Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act," which people have taken to calling simply the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, or PRENDA. Apparently there's only so much bullshit people will put up with, and the ridiculous historical name-dropping is either too annoying, or just too time-consuming to recite every time.

Either way, this bill is a stupid and unnecessary stunt, right down (probably) to scheduling it for consideration under suspension of the rules. As you might have guessed from the high drama in the naming department, and the (Republican) use of the word prenatal, this is an anti-abortion bill. Republicans don't introduce legislation about prenatal anything, if it's meant to deal with routine pregnancies of women who are happily trying to carry babies to full term. They don't care about that prenatal stuff. For Republicans, prenatal is only an abortion-related code word. So the fact that it deals with abortion pretty much guarantees controversy, and that means the chances of it actually passing under suspension of the rules is greatly diminished. And that may very well be the plan. That is, Republicans may think they get the best mileage out of this bill by selling it as compelling and necessary, and then setting it up to fall short, for which they can then blame Democrats. Indeed, if the bill does fail today, it will have been Democrats who prevented it from passing, but only because it will have been Republicans who opted not to use their ability to schedule the bill for consideration under regular order, where it could pass without needing any Democratic support. And they'll likely resort to that later, if the bill doesn't pass today. Why not? If they believe they'll benefit politically by putting Democrats on the record in opposition to this once, surely it can only be better to do it twice.

So what exactly is this bill? Well, it's easiest for me to stick to the procedural issues, and point you to others who know better about the substance. So for this one, I'll point you to a couple articles from RH Reality Check. First, this one, about the non-existent rationale for the bill. And second, this one, about the James O'Keefe-inspired attempt to create a rationale for it, anyway. By some truly amazing coincidence, the creators of these secret video hoaxes have chosen this week to release their latest hit piece, and it just happens to be all about the subject of this legislation, which they totally swear is 100% real and stuff.

That's the big news of the day. There are a few other items that might also raise eyebrows, like the House's insistence on passing a different legislative vehicle for its version of the FDA bill, in order to create a little extra delay and confusion before going to conference. But that's not likely to cause as much of an uproar as this Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass nonsense.

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

Today in Congress: let's talk about yesterday

Fri, 25 May 2012 13:30:03 GMT

A little bit different on the format today, since there's no "today" in Congress, per se. There will be a pro forma session in the Senate, but no business will be conducted. It's Memorial Day weekend, and that means they're outta here. In the Senate, it means a recess next week. In the House, it means coming back to work from this past week's recess on Wednesday of next week. Why Wednesday? Because normally they'd come back on Tuesday, making it a three-day weekend. But you peasants are already getting a three-day weekend, and Congress is better than you, so that must mean they get a four-day weekend. Voilà! Wednesday.

No serious surprises yesterday in the Senate, but I felt like you should get a wrap-up, because of how much was still on the table, and if you've been reading along at all, you might actually end up wondering over the recess what happened to all that stuff they kept agreeing to agree to, but never actually following through on.

Well, what ended up happening was that they did get around to the FDA bill after all. They shot down all the amendments (tabling two of them), and passed the bill. Then, they moved on to not passing the student loan bill, by a vote of 51-43-1. Yep. Another victim of the "painless filibuster." All the obstruction of the regular filibuster, but in a convenient, travel size.

There actually is a committee meeting scheduled for today, so I'm putting that below the fold, along with yesterday's Senate floor wrap-up, which I included so that you could see the full recitation of the traditional pre-recess flood of executive appointments and military promotions passed by unanimous consent. It never fails.

Today in Congress: FDA bill finally underway; student loans up next

Thu, 24 May 2012 13:30:02 GMT

Recapping yesterday's action:

The Senate finally did reach an agreement on amendments to the FDA bill, which means they also finally did agree to agree to their prior agreement that they'd stop debating whether or not to start debating the bill, and start actually debating it. Awesome! Go Senate!

They also agreed to the reauthorization of the Kennedy Center, completed the Rule XIV process on the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Republican-sponsored RAISE Act (to amend federal labor law to allow employers to award merit pay in violation of existing union contracts), and passed a bill removing the word "lunatic" from all prior federal legislation. Hopefully, they have at least 100 instances of the word's appearance, so that each one of them can have one to wear on their lapels.

Looking ahead to today:

Today's Senate schedule is heavy with amendments to the FDA bill, now finally underway. And if they can move quickly through them and on to final passage, the way is clear for consideration and possibly even passage of the Stop Student Loan Interest Rate Hike Act, and the Republican substitute version.

Could be a long day! But hang on, recess is coming!

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

Today in Congress: just like Yesterday in Congress, only later

Wed, 23 May 2012 13:35:03 GMT

Recapping yesterday's action:

OK, before I begin, I just want to make clear that I'm not responsible for the Congressional schedule. Nor do I make it up out of thin air.

Now, I don't think any of you think I am responsible for it. Nor do I think any of you think I'm making it up each day. But I just want to be absolutely clear about things before I tell you what happened yesterday, and what's anticipated today.

As you know, the House is not in session this week.

The Senate, however was... there.

OK, I'm procrastinating. Look, the Senate was supposed to do one thing and one thing only yesterday (not counting eating lunch). They were supposed to execute their agreement to adopt the motion to proceed to the FDA bill at 2:15. But they didn't do it. First, they delayed it until 4:00. Then they delayed it again, until 11 a.m. today. I don't know why, exactly, although it probably had something to do with amendments. But the bottom line is that they had a unanimous consent agreement in place, and then kept unanimously agreeing to unanimously agree to the motion to proceed at some later time.

So that was it. They had lunch, they agreed to agree a few times that they should get back together and agree later. And the one thing that actually moved the ball on a piece of legislation was that they started the Rule XIV process for bringing two bills directly to the floor without sending them through committee: 1) S.3220, the Paycheck Fairness Act, and; 2) S.3221, the Rewarding Achievement and Incentivizing Successful Employees Act. That'll make those two bills eligible for floor consideration by today, though it's not by itself any guarantee that they'll actually get that floor consideration, whether today or ever.

Looking ahead to today:

Deep breath.

Today, the Senate will... do what it was supposed to do yesterday. Or, perhaps I should back off of that a little bit. The Senate is supposed to do today what it was supposed to do yesterday. That is, they're slated to agree to the motion to proceed to the FDA bill at 11 a.m. today. But first, they'll spend an hour or so "debating" it some more. Naturally!

And after they agree to the motion to proceed? Well, uh... they'll proceed. For another hour. And then what?

Well, nobody knows, exactly. They'll definitely continue consideration of the bill, which means they'll be "debating" some more, though at least at that point they'll finally be officially debating the bill itself, rather than pretending to debate the question of whether or not to start debating the bill. But how long they'll debate is anyone's guess.

The real debate will be going on off the floor, where the party leaders will be trying to reach an agreement on how many and which amendments will be offered. If they can reach a deal, great. If not, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) might just end up having to file for cloture on the bill, and throwing it to the 60-vote test. Or, he may decide to switch gears once the Paycheck Fairness bill becomes eligible for floor consideration, leaving the FDA bill for later. This report indicates that Reid is planning to file cloture on the Paycheck Fairness Act on Thursday. But filing on Thursday would mean no vote would be possible (absent a unanimous consent agreement) until at least Saturday, and the chance of the Senate sticking around for Saturday votes prior to a recess seems pretty slim, especially since even a successful cloture vote can still mean another 30 hours before there's a vote on the actual bill on which cloture was invoked. Besides, filing cloture on the bill assumes they're going to get past the motion to proceed before Thursday, which also seems unlikely, unless there's an agreement I don't know about. So I have my doubts about whether that's right.

In any case, whether it's Thursday or Saturday or next month when they actually have a vote on final passage, it's not today. And this is Today in Congress. I just felt like I owed you a little something more than telling you that they didn't do anything yesterday, but that they were totally gonna get it done today.

Lastly, thank you all for your kind comments yesterday. Amazingly, if I didn't know why I did this yesterday, it can hardly be any less confusing for me today, seeing how they're making a second attempt at what it was that drove me up the wall yesterday. But it seems your kind words of appreciation convinced me to come back.

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

Today in Congress: Senate Republicans jump out of the way of the FDA bill. But first... lunch!

Tue, 22 May 2012 13:30:04 GMT

Recapping yesterday's action:

The Senate is the only game in town this week, and it was a relatively productive Monday. Senators reached an agreement for proceeding to the FDA bill, allowing them to vitiate the cloture motion. They were also able to get through the approval of the nomination of Paul J. Watford to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals without needing the cloture vote they were preparing for. And they were even able to clear the Iran sanctions bill that Republicans had objected to moving last week. Probably a wise move by Republicans to jump out of the way of these things following Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) expressions of frustration with their obstructionism that led to a renewed bump in filibuster reform talk. Maybe they're hoping it'll cool passions, or at least appear to remove some of the justification Democrats might have leaned on if they decided to make a move on rules changes, though no one anticipates any such moves in the immediate future.

Looking ahead to today:

Despite the progress, it's a little too early to conclude that the Senate is ready to operate under "normal" conditions, whatever those might be. Although there was an agreement struck to avoid a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the FDA bill, they're not there yet. It seems nothing works intuitively in the Senate, and this agreement is no exception. There won't be a vote on the motion to proceed at all. The agreement is that it'll be considered adopted, but not until 2:15 p.m. today, after spending the morning on additional debate of the motion to proceed. So yes, they're going to "debate" the question of whether or not to begin debate on the FDA bill, even though there's already an agreement in place to say they've agreed to move on to that... at 2:15.

Whatever.

The reality is that they'll use the time to debate the bill itself. They almost never use debate time on motions to proceed to actually discuss whether or not they should proceed, and this is no exception. Today, they'll just basically be killing time until after the Tuesday party luncheons. That's why they're waiting until 2:15. There's nothing magical or even mildly interesting about that time of day. It's just when they're supposed to be done with lunch.

So that's "Today in Congress." The Senate will "debate" something they've already decided, until they're done with lunch. Then they'll "debate" the bill they were "debating" starting "debate" on before lunch, even though everyone already knew they were going to "debate" the bill after lunch.

Honestly, I don't know why I do this sometimes.

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

This Week in Congress: House is closed; Senate seeks cloture. (Again. Of course.)

Mon, 21 May 2012 13:35:03 GMT

Recapping Last Week in Congress

Considered in a vacuum, last week in the House was relatively productive. There was the passage of a (terrible) version of the VAWA that the Senate is almost certain to reject, having already passed their own much better version with substantial bipartisan support, as well as the passage of the NDAA that's currently under veto threat. So yes, things moved. But it may end up being the case that they end up going nowhere.

The Senate began last week with the passage of the Export-Import Bank reauthorization bill. This was the bill filibustered during the previous week, which you may recall set off Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), driving him to reverse his previous position on filibuster reform. Of course, we all appreciated that here, but if you're handicapping things minute to minute, it's worth remembering that yes, the bill actually did pass unamended, which is exactly what Reid was looking for. So how mad might he still really be? On the other hand, there's little doubting that the Republicans will do this to him again on something else. And then again and again and again.

In fact, that was the very next thing they did, and so the Senate wound up the week approving two appointments to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, but also with Reid filing cloture motions on a judicial nomination and the FDA bill, plus seeing Republicans block the Iran sanctions bill.

This Week in Congress

The House is not in session this week. It's the off week in their regular two-weeks-on, one-week-off schedule, and it back up to the Memorial Day week, so they won't come back in until next Wednesday. I suppose they could just as easily have taken next week off too (the Senate will), but they'll just work a short week instead.

The Senate starts this week off with the two above-mentioned cloture votes on the schedule. The game plan is to go to the judicial nomination first, probably because you can get directly to a cloture vote on the nomination itself, without having to deal with a motion to proceed. (A motion to go to executive session for the purposes of debating a nomination is not debatable.) If the cloture vote fails, they'll move on to the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the FDA bill. (They're stuck with the motion to proceed on that one.) But remember, if the cloture vote on the judicial nomination succeeds, then the nomination becomes the exclusive pending business until it's resolved. That could be a quick matter, if Republicans regard the die as cast based on successful cloture, and yield back post-cloture time. The problem, of course, is that they might just want to be jerks about it, and insist on burning up the 30 hours of post-cloture time on the nomination, even if it's a foregone conclusion, just to slow down everything else.

And that's not only a full explanation of the schedule, it's an explanation of why we so rarely know much about the Senate schedule more than a day in advance. You never know when someone's going to turn something that could be settled with a ten minute vote into a 30 hour waste of time.

Full floor and committee schedules are below the fold.