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News and updates

House Begins to Move Four-Bill Spending Package

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On Wednesday, the House approved rules that will govern the floor debate for a four-bill spending package for FY2018.  The House leadership earlier this week decided to combine four of the appropriations bills for next year– the Legislative Branch, Military Construction, Energy and Water, and Defense– into a single legislative package and move them together through the House.  The House will act on the “minibus” package this week.

The House is expected to take up the Legislative Branch and Military Construction bills before moving on to the Energy and Water legislation later this evening.  The Defense bill is expected to be the last of the four measures that will be brought up.

 

Senate Starts Debate on Healthcare Legislation

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After agreeing to start debate on healthcare yesterday by a vote of 51-50, a vote on which Vice President Mike Pence cast the tie-breaking vote, the Senate turned back the first option it considered by a vote of 43-57, with nine Republicans joining all 48 Democrats to oppose the measure.

According to the rules governing this issue, the Senate has 20 hours to debate the healthcare legislation.  During the remainder of the issue, the Senate is expected to consider a number of other options, including a repeal-with-a-two-year-delay as well as a more limited package that would eliminate the individual and employer mandates and the medical device tax.

 

Senate to Vote on “Motion to Proceed” as McCain Returns to Washington

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The Senate Republican leadership has decided to schedule a vote on a “motion to proceed” on the healthcare legislation for later this afternoon.  Many observers view the decision by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to return to Washington to vote as a positive sign for those pushing to start debate on a healthcare bill.  However, the outcome of the vote, which is basically on a motion to start debate on the issue, still remains up in there.

Senate Attempts to Move Forward on Healthcare

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Later this week, including as soon as tomorrow, the Senate Republican leadership will attempt to move forward on its attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, as they try to gather enough votes among Republicans to start floor debate on the issue.  Complicating matters is the fact that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is still in Arizona recovering from surgery.

Another complication for the leadership is the lack of clarity on which underlying measure the members are voting on.  As Republican Senators are being pushed to support a “motion to proceed” on a bill, there is no agreement on which bill would proceed if the vote were successful.  No decision has been made on whether a measure to simply repeal Obamacare with a two-year delay or some version of repeal-and-replace bill would serve as the vehicle to start debate.

The outcome of the vote is uncertain at this point.

House to Consider Multi-Bill Spending Package

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The House Rules Committee started meeting tonight to go over which of the more than 300 amendments would be made in order during the floor consideration of a multi-bill spending package when it hits the House floor later this week.

The “minibus” currently under consideration includes four of the 12 FY2018 spending bills:  Defense, Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction.  While the four-bill minibus package is the bill under consideration, depending on the level of support within the House Republican conference, the House leadership could decide to bring an omnibus spending package instead, one which would contain all 12 bills for FY2018.