In the House, courtesy of the Office of the Democratic Whip:
TOMORROW’S OUTLOOK
On Wednesday, the House will meet at 10:00 a.m. for Morning Hour debate and 12:00 p.m. for legislative business.
Last votes are expected between 3:30 and 4:30 p.m.
“One Minutes” (15 per side)
H.Res. 129 - Rule providing for consideration of H.R. 4 , the Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act of 2011 (Rep. Scott (SC) - Rules)
HR. 662 - Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2011 (Rep. Mica - Transportation and Infrastructure) (Subject to a Rule)
In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:
Convenes: 9:30am
Following any Leader remarks, the Senate will proceed to a period of morning business until 11:00am, with senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each. The Republicans will control the first 30 minutes, the Majority will control the next 30 minutes, and the remaining time until 11:00am will be equally divided and controlled between the two Leaders or their designees, with the Majority controlling the final half.
At 11:00am, the Senate will proceed to vote on passage of H.J.Res.44, the 2-week continuing resolution.
Upon disposition of H.J.Res.44, the Senate will resume consideration of S.23, the America Invents Act.
Additional roll call votes in relation to amendments to the America Invents Act are expected to occur throughout the day.
With the short-term CR passed and handed over to the Senate, the House can return to its other priorities, and the first up is clearing the way for H.R. 4, "the Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act of 2011." What's that? Well, it's a repeal of the 1099 reporting provisions of the Affordable Care Act.
Which, as you know, the House already voted to completely repeal.
That's H.R. 4. Think about that for a second. But first, realize that in recent practice, the first several bill numbers have been reserved by the leadership for priority bills. This year, the Speaker reserved H.R. 1 through H.R. 10 for himself, and H.R. 11 through H.R. 20 for the Minority Leader. So it can fairly be said that the bills that end up carrying the designations H.R. 1 through H.R. 10 are top priorities of the majority leadership. So in a time when nearly all Americans agree that job creation needs to be at the top of the agenda, what have we seen?
Well, so far, we've seen H.R. 1, which turned out to be a full-year omnibus appropriations bill with $100 billion in cuts crammed into it, and hung like a Christmas tree with Republican wish list items like attacks on Planned Parenthood.
H.R. 2, of course, was the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
Then there's H.R. 3, which hasn't made it to the floor yet, but which focuses on... attacking abortion rights.
And now, H.R. 4. Which repeals a specific part of the law that H.R. 2 was supposed to already have repealed.
H.R. 5, I suppose, will double triple secret repeal it. (It's actually a medical malpractice tort reform bill, likely to no one's surprise. And they haven't decided yet what H.R. 6 will be.)
So that should tell you all you need to know about all that "Where are the jobs?" crying Boehner used to do. Now that it's his call to bring up jobs legislation, he's instead brought three attacks on health care, and two on abortion.
On the Senate side, the assumption is that the House's short-term CR passes, with Democrats jumping out of the way this time, but vowing a fight on the long-term bill. That actually sounds terrible, doesn't it? Seems like we've seen this movie before. But the critical difference here, if you're looking for one, is that the cuts in the short-term bill are different in kind. This bill doesn't make the same kind of ideologically-driven defunding attacks that H.R. 1 does. So there's perhaps some strategic, pick-your-battles sense to letting this one go.
Not that Congressional Republicans have been that discriminating in picking their fights. And they haven't exactly suffered for it. But then, that's the movie we were all saying we'd just seen.
Anyway, following the second run of that film, they'll be returning to the patent legislation, S. 23, and its pending amendments. And speaking of not being particularly discriminating in battle-picking, among those amendments will be that very important patent issue, Senator Mike Lee's amendment to express the sense of the Senate in support of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Not a constitutional amendment itself, mind you. An amendment to a patent reform bill that expresses the sense of the Senate that they'd maybe like to support such a constitutional amendment if it ever came along.
I "sense" that the Senate is in for some bullshit, myself. But maybe that's just me.
Today's committee schedule appears below the fold.