2026 Congressional Outlook: A Narrowing Window Before the Midterms

Looking Ahead Near Term House is in recess Senate is in session and is scheduled to take up the Syrian refugee bill before moving onto an energy bill that could be on the floor for a couple of weeks.

The Week in Review With the President delivering his final State of the Union address and Republicans holding a joint retreat to plan their legislative priorities for the year, last week in Washington featured competing political visions for 2016. In his address on Tuesday, the President avoided the policy ‘laundry list’ that typically accompanies the […]

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 […]

Introduction   After a turbulent, but ultimately successful 2015, Congress enters an election year on an upswing. Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have both emphasized their commitment to receiving more input from the rank-and-file members of the party in the shaping of legislative priorities for the upcoming session. As […]

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 […]

The Week in Review With the Senate remaining in recess, the House reconvened from the winter break and set to work on a legislative agenda that highlighted a deep partisan divide on healthcare and regulatory issues. Most notably, the House approved Senate-passed budget reconciliation legislation (H.R. 3762) that would repeal key provisions of the Affordable […]

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 […]

Our Take The First Session of the 114th came to a close last week, fittingly with the passage of the FY16 spending bill and a tax measure dealing with a series of expiring provisions, to tie a bow on a year whose schedule had been dictated by statutorily imposed deadlines.  Despite some Sturm und Drang […]

The Week in Review  The first session of the 114th Congress ended on a high note as Democratic and Republican lawmakers were able to work through their differences and pass a mammoth $1.6 trillion spending and tax deal that will fund the government for the remainder of the 2016 fiscal year. On Friday morning, House […]

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 […]