Last Week in Congress
Last week was a bit of a time-waster in the House, but not as much as this week is going to be! As the rest of us waited for some job-related relief and some attention to the actual problems facing the country, the House passed two more offshore drilling free-for-all bills, repealing an imaginary drilling moratorium and granting permits by "deeming" the mandatory safety studies to have been completed, whether they'd been done or not. Those—for Republicans—are the lessons of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, it seems. Then a brief detour into reality, passing an Intelligence Authorization bill in an attempt to play catch-up in the wake of the Osama bin Laden killing.
The Senate, for its part, got nothing done legislatively last week. But they did manage to confirm three judges, two of them by unanimous vote. They did, however, conspire to filibuster a vote confirming James Cole as Deputy Attorney General. Cole, you'll remember, was the House ethics committee special counsel who busted Newt Gingrich for his fiscal dalliances with the first iteration of "Newt, Inc.," which has once again become a topic of interest (as though it were something new) now that Gingrich is going through the motions of running for president.
This Week in Congress
So, how could this week in the House be any more of a time waster than last week? How about if they don't even return to session at all this week? Yes, that's right. Two weeks after returning from the last recess, and two weeks before they plan to leave for the next one... the House is taking just one more much needed week-long break.
So what aren't they working on this week? Well for one thing, they won't be turning to foreclosure relief, like Rep. Raul Grijalva's Right to Rent Act:
Oh, and another thing they won't be on hand to deal with: the debt ceiling:
Happy debt-ceiling day! As of today, the authority Congress has given the Treasury to borrow money outpaces the borrowing required by the laws Congress has passed. Today, in other words, is the day we hit the debt ceiling. I hope you brought cake and candles.
Forget cake and candles. Did anyone bring the Republican-controlled United States House of Representatives?
No? Wow. Well, that must be because they are souch Very Serious People.TM
The Democratic Senate, by contrast, will be on hand and begin work on confirming another judicial nominee, this time a Second Circuit appeals court judge, which is perhaps slightly heavier lifting than the district court judges that occupied their time last week.
That's all we know for sure about the Senate schedule at this point, though we're still awaiting the threatened vote on the House's Paul Ryan budget, and of course, the debt ceiling limit still looms. And it's nearly June. Seems pretty irresponsible for the House to be out of town at this point, don't you think?
Full floor and committee schedules are below the fold.
The House is not in session this week.
In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:
Monday:
Convenes: 2:00pm
Following any leader remarks, the Senate will be in morning business for debate only until 5pm with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.
There will be no roll call votes on Monday.
Tuesday:
At 10:00am on Tuesday, May 17th, the Senate will proceed to Executive Session to consider Calendar #31, Susan Carney, of Connecticut, to be US Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit with two hours of debate equally divided and controlled between Senators Leahy and Grassley or their designees.
Votes:
At approximately 12pm, the Senate will conduct a roll call vote on confirmation of the Carney nomination.