In the House, courtesy of the Office of the Democratic Whip:
THE NIGHTLY WHIP: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 2011
TOMORROW’S OUTLOOK
On Thursday, 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 6:00 and 7:00 p.m.
“One Minutes” (15 per side)
Postponed Suspension Vote (1):
- H.R. 872 - Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act of 2011 (Rep. Gibbs - Transportation and Infrastructure/Agriculture)
Begin Consideration of H.R. 658 - FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2011 (Rep. Mica - Transportation and Infrastructure/Science and Technology/Judiciary) (Subject to a Rule)
The Rule provides for one hour of general debate and makes in order the following amendments:
Mica Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
Waters Amendment #34 (10 minutes of debate)
Pierluisi Amendment #39 (10 minutes of debate)
Hirono Amendment #28 (10 minutes of debate)
Neugebauer Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
LoBiondo Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
Garrett/Himes/Andrews/Engel Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
Filner Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
DeFazio Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
Hirono Amendment #27 (10 minutes of debate)
Jackson Lee Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
Miller (MI) Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
Woodall Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
Pierluisi Amendment #20 (10 minutes of debate)
Schweikert Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
Richardson Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
Capuano Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
Gingrey/Rokita Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
Graves Amendment #33 (10 minutes of debate)
Sessions Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
LaTourette/Costello Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
Graves Amendment #1 (10 minutes of debate)
Waxman Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
Shuster Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
Moore Amendment #11 (10 minutes of debate)
Graves Amendment #12 (10 minutes of debate)
Pearce Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
Rothman Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
Schiff/Sherman/Berman Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
Matheson/Pearce Amendment (10 minutes of debate)
Waters Amendment #32 (10 minutes of debate)
Moore Amendment #36 (10 minutes of debate)
Crowley Amendment (10 minutes)
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 with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each with the first hour equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees with the Majority controlling the first 30 minutes and the Republicans controlling the next 30 minutes.
Senators will be notified when votes are scheduled.
The House will spend it's day, and probably part of tomorrow, on a crappy union-busting bill that the President has already threatened to veto. Well, maybe not, actually. See, for some reason, the White House has begun couching their Statements of Administration Policy—the documents in which veto threats are formally made—in somewhat unusual terms. That is, instead of saying, as most SAPs have in the past, that if presented with such a bill the president would veto it, this SAP (and the last few preceding it, actually) have said, "the President's senior advisers would recommend" that he veto it.
That's... strange.
Anyway, want to know what all those amendments are about? Visit the Rules Committee page for the bill and read through their descriptions.
In the Senate, well, uh... we'll call you. Again. We are ostensibly still working on the small business jobs bill. But there hasn't been a vote on anything related to it since March 16th. And no wonder, since almost none of the pending amendments actually has anything to do with small business jobs. It's becoming a Christmas tree, as they call it. Hung with policy rider "ornaments" of all kinds, ranging from Republican hobby horses like blocking the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gasses, to a Bernie Sanders amendment to protect Social Security, to Rand Paul's motion to commit and report back with an amendment relating to the use of military force in Libya.
The Senate invoked cloture on the motion to proceed to this bill on March 14th. Since then, they've managed three votes on amendments, all on the 16th. And that's been the sum total of their progress on voting, as amendments continue to rack up. Looks like that "gentlemen's agreement" was a real winner in terms of its ability to untangle the knots the Senate has tied around itself. The way things are going, they might just have to set S. 493 aside to pass a second CR during its consideration.
A small business jobs bill. Really. Not even kidding.
And have I mentioned that there's another recess scheduled in two weeks?
Committee schedule appears below, if you can stand it. Feel like watching House Republicans suddenly backing a gigantic tax increase? Check out the 2pm Ways and Means Committee markup of H.R. 1232, yet another bill trying to sneak by the huge tax hike hidden in H.R. 3. You can watch them throw out everything they ever said they stood for, from low taxes, to smaller government, and chat with other viewers about the cravenness with which they're doing it, with the Main Street Insider Committee Dashboard.