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Category: Congressional To Do

Vote-a-rama

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It’s budget week on the Senate side (as well as confirmation week). The Senate is expected to start their all nighter on Wednesday. The Senate Democrats have vowed to take up all the debate time allotted (and more).

The bare-bones budget resolution, S.Con.Res. 3, released last week includes instructions to relevant committees to draft legislation aimed at repealing the health care law through reconciliation, a process that sidesteps the threat of Democratic obstruction or filibuster in the Senate. Getting the budget measure passed requires allowing Democratic Senators an almost endless opportunity to offer amendments aimed at expressing their opposition to repeal.

What the Senate will tackle this week is unique, since most measures can be filibustered. The 1974 Congressional Budget Act inoculates the consideration of any budget resolution from a filibuster and limits debate to 50 hours total. Once the time is up, everything must be voted upon.

What makes a budget resolution different is the clock. Once cloture is invoked on a customary bill, all motions, amendments, and passage must conclude by the end of debate time, which is 30 hours. Already, a budget bill receives 20 additional hours of debate.  Furthering the curiousness of the Senate budget process, however, is that any amendment that is offered must be disposed of before adoption of the resolution.

That means, regardless of the fact that the allotted debate time may expire Wednesday, any Senator may call up additional amendments and get a roll call vote even after debate time has expired. This is when things get fun. Senators may (and do) continue to seek votes on amendments after time has expired making the session can drag on and on. (No joke, there are cots for Senators to sleep on for the all nigher.) While Senators do not receive any additional debate time, past precedent has allowed a minute or two for Senators to explain their amendments before the vote. This barrage of a series of votes is what is known as “vote-a-rama”. 

Once a vote-a-rama stretches late into the next day, the minority party will often relent and allow a final vote once they have had enough opportunities to get Senators on record usually defeating amendments containing popular priorities, used primarily for messaging purposes.

The House is expected to fast track the legislation after the measure passes the Senate.

The measure also comes as a growing number of Republicans say that any repeal legislation should await a replacement plan, which might be difficult given the Budget resolution asks the various committees to produce a plan by January 27th. 

Meanwhile, the Senate has a busy week with a number of confirmation hearings both this week and in the coming weeks.

Nomination Schedule

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Politico has an excellent overview of the coming nominees for the incoming Administration’s cabinet positions.

Week of Jan. 9

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development 
Nominee: Ben Carson
Background: Retired neurosurgeon, former GOP primary rival
Committee: Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs
Confirmation Hearings: Sen. Mike Crapo is planning to hold a hearing next week
Recent Politico Coverage:

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Tuesday, Jan. 10

Attorney General
Nominee: Sen. Jeff Sessions
Background: Alabama Republican Congressman
Committee: Senate Judiciary
Confirmation Hearings: Jan. 10 and 11. More here.
Recent Politico Coverage:

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Wednesday, Jan. 11

Secretary of Education
Nominee: Betsy DeVos
Background: Billionaire, philanthropist, Republican megadonor
Committee: Senate HELP
Confirmation hearings: Jan. 11 at 10 a.m.  More here.
Recent Politico Coverage:

 

Secretary of Transportation 
Nominee: Elaine Chao
Background: Former Labor Secretary under the George W. Bush administration, deputy secretary of transportation under President George H.W. Bush, member of Trump’s Asian Pacific American Advisory Council for the campaign, married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
Committee: Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation
Confirmation Hearings: Jan. 11 10:15 a.m. More here.
Recent Politico Coverage:

 

Secretary of Homeland Security
Nominee: John Kelly
Background: Retired Marine general, former U.S. Southern Command chief
Committee: Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Confirmation hearings: Jan. 11 at 2 p.m. More here.
Recent Politico Coverage:

 

Secretary of State
Nominee: Rex Tillerson
Background: CEO of Exxon Mobil
Committee: Senate Foreign Relations
Confirmation Hearings: Jan. 11
Recent Politico Coverage:

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Thursday, Jan. 12

Secretary of Commerce 
Nominee: Wilbur Ross
Background: Billionaire private-equity investor, founder of the private equity firm WL Ross & Co.
Committee: Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation
Confirmation Hearings: Jan. 12 at 10:00 a.m. More here.
Recent Politico Coverage:

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Week of Jan. 16 and beyond

Secretary of Labor
Nominee: Andy Puzder
Background: CEO of CKE Restaurants, which include the Carl’s Jr. fast food chain
Committee: Senate HELP
Confirmation Hearings: The week of Jan. 16
Recent Politico Coverage:

Secretary of Health and Human Services
Nominee: Rep. Tom Price
Background: Georgia Republican Congressman, House Budget Chairman
Committee: Senate Finance
Confirmation Hearings: TBD, the HELP Committee is tentatively set to hold a confirmation hearing on Jan. 18.
Recent Politico Coverage:

Secretary of Treasury 
Nominee: Steven Mnuchin
Background: Former Goldman Sachs executive, Trump’s national finance chair for the campaign
Committee: Senate Finance
Confirmation Hearings: TBD
Recent Politico Coverage:

Secretary of Defense
Nominee: James Mattis
Background: Retired U.S. Marine Corps general
Committee: Senate Armed Services
Confirmation Hearings: TBD
Recent Politico Coverage:

Secretary of Interior
Nominee: Rep. Ryan Zinke
Background: Montana Republican Congressman, former U.S. Navy SEAL commander
Committee: Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Confirmation hearings: TBD

Secretary of Energy
Nominee: Rick Perry
Background: Former governor of Texas
Committee: Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Confirmation hearing: TBD
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator
Nominee: Scott Pruitt
Background: Oklahoma Attorney General
Committee: Senate Environment and Public Works
Confirmation Hearings: TBD

 

Ambassador to the United Nations
Nominee: Nikki Haley
Background: Governor of South Carolina
Committee: Senate Foreign Relations
Confirmation hearings: TBD

 

Director of the Office of Management and Budget
Nominee: Rep. Mick Mulvaney
Background: South Carolina Republican Congressman
Committee: Senate Budget and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Confirmation hearings: TBD

 

U.S. Trade Representative
Nominee: Robert Lighthizer
Background: Trade attorney, former deputy USTR under President Ronald Reagan
Committee: Senate Finance
Confirmation hearing: TBD

Two Budgets Next Year

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Congress will do two budget resolutions next year. The first will be aimed at the ACA early in the Congress and the second effort at reconciliation will be aimed at tax reform, which should be in the Spring.

The first budget that House and Senate Republicans will unveil early next year will include reconciliation instructions to fast track repeal of the 2010 health law, but is otherwise expected to be relatively bare-bones. the budget resolution is likely to abide by the $1.070 trillion discretionary spending cap that Republican conservatives opposed earlier this year. However, Republican leadership is touting the figure as a placeholder and not to be taken seriously — the real policy choices will be made in the FY2018 budget resolution to be drafted in the spring.

Both House and Senate GOP leaders have signaled that reconciliation, which can not be filibustered in the Senate, is the best path for tax reform. Speaker Paul Ryan is proceeding as if reconciliation would be necessary. This choice means that any tax reform plan would have to be deficit-neutral and would come with an expiration date.

Democrats have said they would be willing to talk about a narrower tax-and-infrastructure deal. But it also seems like it would be difficult for the more comprehensive tax reform approach that McConnell and Ryan talked up to get 60 votes in the Senate.

CR Passes, Happy Holidays!

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In a late Friday night vote, the Senate passed the Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the government through April 28, 2017 by a vote of 62-34. The House passed the measure earlier in the week, and with the Senate’s passage, a government shutdown has been averted.

There was much uncertainty thrown into the CR at the last minute with Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) trying to halt the measure due to the lack of a full year’s extension of retired coal miners’ health benefits. Manchin was threatening to filibuster or convince 40 Senate Democrats to vote against cloture on the measure. That effort failed and the Senate passed cloture on Thursday. That vote added a new wrinkle in that cloture guarantees 30 hours of debate on legislation, and if the Senate Democrats were to exhaust the full 30 hours, then the Senate vote would not occur until 1 am on Saturday, December 10th, a full hour after the CR had expired.

Rather than risk that scenario, the Senate  ended debate earlier, proceeded with, and passed the measure at 11 pm on Friday. It should be noted that the House recessed Thursday, and most House Members were back in the district, with little intention of returning, on Friday.

President Barack Obama is expected to sign the CR. 

The stopgap measure, which took immediate effect, extends current funding levels for most federal agencies and abides by an annual cap on discretionary spending of $1.07 trillion for FY2017. It also provides extra money for military operations, flood relief, medical research and the effort to repair the lead-contaminated water system of Flint, MI.

With that, the House and Senate are expected to recess Sine Die in the coming week. They will convene in the 115th Congress.

CR Released, Should Pass This Week

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The continuing resolution (CR) was released late last night. The text of the legislation is here. The big news is that the CR will fund the federal government through April 28, 2017. The legislation maintains the current budget cap level of $1.07 trillion put into place under the Budget Control Act of 2011, which results in an across the board cut of .1901%.

The House is expected to vote on the measure on Thursday and the Senate is expected to follow suit on Friday. 

Big Items of Note: 

The Defense Overseas Contingency Fund, which is not subject to budget caps, was increased by $8 billion in response to the Administration’s request to combat ISIS. Of note, the Administration asked for $11.6 billion.  The CR increase does include RDT&E funding that is related to the Global War on Terrorism and the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Fund received a $87M increase.  The funding will go to both defense-specific funding to combat ISIS as well as non-military spending — such as Humanitarian Assistance, State Department and USAID operations funding, Economic and Stabilization Assistance, and Embassy security funding — to combat ISIS. 

The CR does add funding in FY 2017 to accounts created and highlighted in the Cures bill for opioids, NIH and FDA initiatives, and Flint drinking water. The Cures funding is fully offset per the authorizing bill. Specifically, the totals for the year amount to: 

  • $500 million in grants to states to fight opioid abuse, 
  • $352 for the new NIH Innovations Fund (as created by Cures), 
  • $20 million directed to the FDA Innovation account (as created by cures), and  
  • $50 million is directed to HHS to address health issues relating to a lead-tainted drinking water system in Michigan. 

There is a provision to address President-elect Trump’s Secretary of Defense nominee, Ret. USMC Gen. James. Mattis, who left service three years ago. Under a 1947 federal statute, Secretaries of Defense must be civilians or retired from service for at least 7 years to be eligible to serve; its an effort to assure civilian control of the military. This requirement has been waived once in 1950 for General George C. Marshall. 

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Other Items of Note:

There is additional funding to allow continued operations and data collection for continuation of data for weather warnings, including forecasts of severe weather events from NOAA’s Joint Polar Satellite System.

There is a provision allowing additional funding, if needed, for the housing and care of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) after February 1, 2017. The number of UACs has been spiking as of late and was an issue for the FY2017 appropriations cycle. Of note, this funding comes from the Labor-H appropriations bill. 

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Additional updates will be posted on our blog.