After seven weeks of recess, the House and Senate are back to work today. Congressional lawmakers now have approximately 17 legislative days to figure out how to avoid a government shutdown before the new fiscal year (FY 2017) begins on October 1. As we saw last year (a non-election year), coming to an agreement on how to allocate federal fiscal resources is already and tough job. Now, with re-election campaigns now in high gear, political tensions have only grown worse since Congress adjourned in mid-July, further complicating the difficult dealmaking to come.
Adding another layer of complications and vitriol, at least on the House side, the House Freedom caucus, a vocal group of about 40 hard-core conservatives, are blaming GOP leadership for the defeat of one of the caucus’s most active members, Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS), in a party primary in August.
Much of this week will likely be spent drawing battle lines over the expected stopgap measure, known as a continuing resolution (CR), that would extend current FY 2016 funding levels into the new fiscal year (FY 2017) for a short length of time. While a typical CR simply extends all current funding levels for a specified amount of time, pressure is building to add money to combat the Zika virus. A $1.1 billion Zika package collapsed in July in a partisan standoff, although efforts could be made to revive it with modifications. The Senate is feeling pressure to include Zika funding from Senators like Floridian Marco Rubio, who’s state has been particularly impacted. Flood relief for Louisiana is as expected to be discussed.
The length of the CR is also in question. Fiscal hawks of the House Freedom Caucus have long been arguing for a CR into March of 2017 to wait until the new President is in office. Many others in Congress, namely the Democrats, want to clear the decks for the new President and pass an omnibus measure in December — something the staunch conservatives in Congress have vowed to fight in the lame duck session. In fact, Senate Democrats have been very vocal on this issue, and without the support of the Senate Democrats on any CR measure, the Senate Republicans cannot overcome the 60-vote threshold to defeat cloture.
Happy end of August Recess. Here are a few articles the Federal Relations team has been enjoying this week.
Just 90 – According to ‘carbon accountant’ Richard Heede there are 90 companies contribute two thirds of the global carbon emissions. Among those, the top eight companies — ranked according to annual and cumulative emissions — account for 20 percent of world carbon emissions from fossil fuels and cement production since the Industrial Revolution. Heede has compiled a massive database quantifying who has been responsible for taking carbon out of the ground and putting it into the atmosphere. Read more in Science.
SCOTUS Scooch? – Senate Republicans could relent on their hard-line stance in opposition to granting Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland a confirmation hearing this year. Read more in Politico.
Extension Headache – Funding for the federal government dries up on October 1, which will force Congress to move a stopgap spending bill in September just weeks before the Nov. 8 presidential election. Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus are pushing to extend government funding into early 2017, wary of a massive bipartisan spending deal in the lame-duck and rank in file Republicans are also wary of setting up the period after the election as a time to move on funding and a host of other issues.. But GOP leaders and House Democrats are already laying the groundwork for a short-term continuing resolution, or CR, that will set up a vote on a catch-all spending bill right before the holidays. Read more in The Hill.
16 – As more and more students and parents grow frustrated with the rising cost and uncertain quality of a college education; as employers and policymakers bemoan the negative economic effects of a lack of college-educated workers; and as voters turn angry about how the higher education system seems to perpetuate inequality rather than alleviate it, politicians are putting pressure on institutions to improve. Conditions are becoming ripe, in other words, for the innovators to take charge. Read about the 16 most innovative people in higher ed in Washington Monthly.
110 – Over 100 Republican thought leaders have declared to be against Trump. Read when and why they flipped at the New York Times.
South of the Border – Trump will meet with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto ahead of a major speech on immigration on Wednesday. The surprise visit comes as Trump is later scheduled to deliver what’s billed as a “major speech” on immigration in Arizona. Read more at NBC News.
Welcome BACK! – The scaffolding around the Capitol Dome has been slowly going away, and the picturesque structure is starting to look like itself again. Read more in Roll Call.
After a brief hiatus, here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team is enjoying this week.
More Ways to Pay – A trove of data released by the Education Department on Monday shows a continuing trend of people enrolling in the government’s generous student loan repayment plans as well as people struggling to pay their debt. Americans have a wealth of options for repaying their student loans, because of the Obama administration’s expansion of programs that cap monthly payments to a percentage of earnings, known as income-based repayment plans. Few people initially knew of the plans, but direct outreach and marketing campaigns have quadrupled enrollment in the past four years. Read more at The Washington Post.
Not That Important – A college’s ranking is the least important of 16 factors for evaluating the success of a college president, according to presidents themselves. Just 3% of U.S. college presidents say university ranking scores are an “extremely important” factor. Read what is important at Gallup.
Yellowstone Geyser (LOC)
Power to the People – The National Labor Relations Board ruled on Tuesday that graduate students at private universities have the right to form unions and bargain collectively. The decision doesn’t affect grad students at public universities. Those grad students are public employees of their states (and therefore governed by state laws about public sector unions). This is the third time in 16 years the NLRB has ruled on this question: It ruled in favor of graduate students in 2000 (with board members appointed by Bill Clinton), then against them in 2004 (after board appointments from George W. Bush). Read more at The Wall Street Journal and NPR.
Judicial Activism –Disagreement over the legality of the 2011 guidance that spurred the U.S. Education Department’s toughened enforcement of campus sexual assault has been building in recent months, with many college officials, Republican members of Congress and others questioning the legitimacy of the federal guidelines and dozens of legal and advocacy groups defending the guidance. Now a federal judge has weighed in — sort of — with a ruling that several legal experts say could have significant implications for the Obama administration’s attempts to regulate education issues, including sexual violence. Read more in Inside Higher Education.
MINE, Not Yours – As a new school year gets underway, the Common Core remains a partisan flashpoint, while Americans overall have serious concerns about the direction of our public education system, but Americans seem to like their schools…just not your schools. Read more at NPR.
Flip the Script – Odds are that very soon, the Supreme Court will become something it hasn’t been in nearly 50 years: made up of a majority of Democratic-appointed justices. Ever since Abe Fortas’s resignation in 1969, the Court has either been split down the middle or, more often, made up primarily of Republican appointees. Some of those Republican appointees nonetheless turned out to be liberals, but even taking that into account, the Court hasn’t been majority liberal since 1971, when William Rehnquist and Lewis Powell joined. Now, with the empty seat left by Judge Scalia and the high likelihood of Clinton winning, that could very well change. Read more in Vox.
1,000 Year Flood – Louisiana is entering recovery mode after devastating flooding killed 13 people and damaged at least 60,000 homes across 20 parishes and disaster recovery is expected to cost over $30 million. Read more in NPR.
Retake the Citadel – Democrats are currently on track to retake the Senate, according to the latest polls —though they don’t have much room for error. If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, her party would need a net gain of four seats to take over control of the chamber. And just a few months ago, the party had a clear advantage in polls of just two contests. But the combination of Donald Trump’s nomination and a strong recruitment effort has bolstered Democrats’ chances. Read more in Vox.
Nah, Man – The Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience published a study from the University of British Columbia (of course) on the effects of marijuana on a rat’s willingness to exert cognitive effort. Rats that only ingested CBD, the non-psychoactive compound of marijuana known for its medicinal benefits, were just as alert and functioning as ever. But those lab rats that took bong rips of THC, marijuana’s main active ingredient, had no interest in doing their tasks and just wanted to watch cartoons all day. Read more in The Guardian.
Debbie Downers – Those dang millennials. They’re having less sex, saving more money, not buying homes and now they’re refusing to take vacation. Increased work pressures and a 24/7 always-on attitude have caused many Americans to increasingly abandon their vacation days. It’s estimated that 55% of working Americans didn’t use all of their vacation days in 2015, leaving behind 658 million days of unused PTO. Read more in Travel + Leisure.
Post Olympic Slump – Despite widespread fears that the Rio would be unprepared, or that crime and disorganization might turn the Olympics into a national embarrassment, many Brazilians came to view the Games as a triumph and a much-needed distraction from the country’s economic malaise and political upheaval. Read more in The New York Times.
100th Anniversary – The National Park Service is celebrating its centennial this week. On August 26, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the act putting 35 parks and monuments nationwide —including Yellowstone and Yosemite — under the new federal agency. According to the Park Service, it faces a maintenance backlog of $12 billion and half of that is to repair and upgrade park roads. Read more in Marketplace.
2020 – The Tokyo 2020 Olympic medals will be made from old mobile phones. Read more in Quartz.
Gimme A Reason – Five types of web searches where you should use a search engine other than Google (aka, math). Read more in Gizmodo.
This week the Office of Budget and Management (OMB) released a report regarding enforcement of the discretionary spending caps for both 2016 and 2017 as contained in the Sequester. The OMB must issue a final sequestration report after the Congress adjourns and to date, no 2017 appropriations bills have been enacted into law and, therefore, no changes are reflected to the current 2017 caps. However, if the 2017 discretionary caps remain unchanged, the report estimates that, if enacted, the actions by the House of Representatives would result in a sequestration of $17 million in the defense category and a sequestration of $775 million in the non-defense category. Additionally, the report finds that the Senate is in compliance with both of the current 2017 spending limits. Finally, OMB estimates that present conference action on pending 2016
supplemental appropriations, if enacted, would not breach the current 2016 limits.
Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team is enjoying this week.
How Did We Get Here? – The conventions are over, and official nominees are now in the running, but it was 9% of Americans that picked Clinton and Trump. Read more in The New York Times.
Male Bias – Universities across the nation have faced federal scrutiny over their handling of sexual-assault complaints against male students. At the urging of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, campuses have revamped their sexual-misconduct policies with promises of swifter and tougher responses to allegations of abuse. A ruling by a federal appeals court potentially turns the table on legal liability under Title IX, the federal educational-equity law. Read more in the WSJ.
Temple of Sun, Baalbek (LOC)
Birth Certificate Version 2.0 – The racy photos of the Melania Trump, published in the New York Post on Sunday and Monday, inadvertently highlight inconsistencies in the various accounts of her immigration to to the US she has provided over the years, and, pose a slim chance legal problems for her today. Read more at Politico.
Ancient Concept – In 1473, Alexander Hardynge, who had finished his bachelor’s degree at Oxford nearly two years previous, borrowed money through an educational loan service. The loan came with a one year repayment deadline. With some of that money, he rented a room at Exeter College and offered tutoring services to college students. He soon repaid that loan. In 1475, Hardynge took out a second loan – again, in part to rent teaching space, but the first student loan was taken out in 1240. Read more in Time.
Down Ballot Politics – This election cycle Democrats are losing to Republicans at the state and local level and these down ballot elections are being heavily influenced by three groups, all funded by two people. Read more at Vox.
Lead Astray – Political idealism or visions of political perfection are bound to lead us astray and our commitment or a complete fidelity to those ideals can lead us to make things worse rather than better. Read more at Vox.
Berned – Senator Bernie Sanders a slowly and begrudgingly getting behind Hillary, throwing support to the Green Party candidate, or have just decided to not vote at all. However the willingness of Sanders supporters to shout down one of the most iconic figures in modern civil rights, Rep. Elijah Cummings, at the recent Democratic convention raises a question: Just what revolution are they talking about? And for whom? Read more in Politico.
