Recapping yesterday's action:
Er, ah, well... see, the thing is, the House is in recess all week. And the Senate? Well, they were in session. Sort of. But they didn't vote on anything. They made some deals to vote on some stuff today, and later this week. Well, sort of. That is, they agreed to hold some votes that would require 60 votes in order to pass. And they even agreed to hold some votes on whether or not to begin debate on stuff they want to vote on, and those votes will also require 60 votes to pass.
Oh, and they named some post offices by unanimous consent.
But they didn't vote on anything.
Looking ahead to today:
The Senate is the only show in town today. And they'll start with another judicial nomination, that of Susan Carney, for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. That's a bigger deal than most of the nominations that they've dealt with to this point during this Congress. The appeals bench is the intermediate step between federal trial courts and the Supreme Court. So we'll see whether this one goes smoothly or not.
After the break for party lunches, it's on to the first of the bills covered under yesterday's deal.
So what's that deal about? The idea is to take up S. 940, the Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act. But we don't even know that that's what'll end up happening.
Why not? Because before you can take up a bill, you have to get the Senate as a body to agree that that's what they want to do. Bills don't just come to the floor by magic. If you're lucky, you can get unanimous consent to do it. But if not, then you have to actually make a motion to proceed to consider the bill you want (a "motion to proceed" for short), and get a Senate majority to agree to your motion.
Thing is, the motion to proceed gets a debate of its own. And that debate is subject to the filibuster. And if you can filibuster the motion to proceed, then what you end up with is a debate on whether or not to end debate on the question of whether to start debate on the bill you actually wanted to bring to the floor. You may recall that we saw a lot of that in the last Congress. This Congress began with a "gentleman's agreement" by Republicans not to filibuster motions to proceed, in exchange for Democrats agreeing not to use procedural tricks to block Republicans from offering amendments. So I guess that deal broke down over this bill, at least.
What we have in this situation, however, is what I call a "painless filibuster." Because one or both sides in the fight over whether or not S. 940 should be brought to the floor know that there are at least some opponents who are willing to threaten a filibuster, but nobody really wants to sit there and see how long those opponents can hold out, nor have to waste the time it takes to file for and invoke cloture, everyone agrees (in a unanimous consent agreement) to simply require 60 votes in order to pass the motion to proceed, rather than go through the hassle of actually having the filibuster fight. So the 60-vote threshold is built right into the vote. If you can get 60 for the motion to proceed, then it's assumed that you'd have been able to get them for a cloture vote, too. And vice versa, of course. So everyone saves time by agreeing to these "painless filibusters." But protecting big oil subsidies are the kind of thing you might have thought Democrats would be happy to force Republicans filibuster over.
But as we know, there are also a few oil state Democrats who might not be very happy at the prospect of this bill's passage. So we'll have... this thing, instead.
Today's floor and committee schedules appear below the fold.
The House is not in session this week.
In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:
Convenes: 10:00am
Following any Leader remarks, the Senate will proceed to Executive Session to consider Executive Calendar #31, the nomination of Susan Carney, of Connecticut, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit. There will be up to 2 hours for debate prior to a vote on confirmation of the nomination. As a result, Senators should expect a roll call vote on confirmation of the Carney nomination to begin shortly after 12 noon.
Following the vote, the Senate will recess until 2:15pm to allow for the weekly caucus meetings.
At 2:15pm, the Senate will begin consideration of the motion to proceed to S.940, the Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act. There will be up to 4 hours for debate, equally divided and controlled in the usual form, prior to a vote on the motion to proceed to S.940. The vote on the motion to proceed is subject to a 60-affirmative vote. Senators should expect the vote on the motion to proceed to S.940 to begin at approximately 6:15pm.
Votes:
At approximately 12pm, the Senate will conduct a roll call vote on confirmation of the Carney nomination.
Senators should expect the vote on the motion to proceed to S.940 to begin at approximately 6:15pm.
5/16 Senate wrap-up:
Unanimous Consent:
Passed S.349, A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 4865 Tallmadge Road in Rootstown, Ohio, as the “Marine Sgt. Jeremy E. Murray Post Office”.
Passed S.655, A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 95 Dogwood Street in Cary, Mississippi, as the “Spencer Byrd Powers, Jr. Post Office”.
Passed H.R.793, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 12781 Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in Inverness, California, as the “Specialist Jake Robert Velloza Post Office”.
Discharged Judiciary/adopted S.Res.177: designating the week of May 15 through May 21, 2011, as “National Public Works Week”.