Senate Breaks for August After Nominations Stalemate

With Washington still shoveling out from a mammoth snow storm and the public transit systems and airports not yet back to full service, the Capitol will remain largely quiet today. The Senate’s scheduled to gavel in at 10:00 a.m. with no roll-call votes planned for the day. Senate leadership has delayed until tomorrow a vote on […]

Washington is still digging out from a severe snowstorm over the weekend that brought two feet of snow to the area. As a result, the week’s schedule is still in flux, with the House already calling off all votes for the week and the Senate delaying all their votes until Wednesday at the earliest. As […]

With the House in recess this week in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the Senate will first vote on the nomination of Wilhelmina Marie Wright to be U.S. district court judge in Minnesota before moving on to the contentious debate over settling Syrian refugees in the United States. On Wednesday, the upper chamber […]

President Obama will provide an overview of his record in office as he attempts to burnish his legacy tonight during his final State of the Union address. The speech to a joint session of Congress will give Obama a chance to sell the public – and, to a lesser extent, lawmakers – on his legislative […]

The Senate returns to Washington today, but the highlight of the week will be President Obama’s final State of the Union address tomorrow night. After taking the spotlight with executive actions on gun control last week, the President is expected to use the annual speech to outline the remainder of his agenda, particularly selling Congress […]

While the Senate will remain in recess until Monday, January 11, a new year in Congress starts tomorrow as the House is scheduled to reconvene from its winter break. House lawmakers are set to begin on a highly partisan note with the consideration of the Senate-passed budget reconciliation bill (H.R. 3762) that would repeal key […]

Legislative action for the year is set to finish today as both chambers complete work on a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill (omnibus text; section-by-section summary), and an accompanying tax measure (tax package; section-by-section summary). The House has already passed the ‘tax extenders’ package and is poised to pass the omnibus this morning before combining […]

Congressional leaders last night unveiled a broad package of spending and tax legislation that would avert a U.S. government shutdown, delay Obamacare’s medical device tax and Cadillac tax for two years, and lift the 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports, among other policy provisions. In a pair of measures around midnight last night, Congress released the […]

This week will test the ability for Democrats and Republicans to work through their differences towards compromise as lawmakers rush to complete a $1.1 trillion spending measure to fund the government and a package of tax breaks before the winter recess. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) said the text of a broader omnibus spending […]

With highway funding and reconciliation settled, Congress is geared to begin a busy legislative week. Lawmakers will only have five days to complete an omnibus package funding the government beyond current funding’s expiration on December 11. The text of a $1.1 trillion omnibus bill may be posted today, which would allow the House to take […]

Congress will begin on a bipartisan note this morning as the House is set to vote on the broadly backed conference report to reauthorize elementary and secondary education programs. The report to H.R. 5 would replace the George W. Bush-era No Child Left Behind law and give significantly more power to the states in setting […]

With the current stop-gap authorization for highway funding expiring on Friday, it is now crunch time for the surface transportation bill. House-Senate conferees will work against a Friday deadline to try to quickly iron out differences on H.R. 22 and enact the first multi-year highway authorization law since 2012. However, it is likely that they […]