Today In Congress (TIC):
Avoiding a Government Shutdown - First up, the House is expected to vote on a $1.2 Trillion spending bill today to keep the government funded and avoid a “partial” government shutdown at midnight tonight, according to this CNN Report. (Note- it’s a partial shutdown because Congress previously passed spending legislation to keep the other parts of the government funded through the end of the Federal fiscal year, September 30th.)
The text of the 1000 page Bill came out last night, and now the House and Senate will attempt to work at light speed to pass it in just a little over 12 hours to avoid the midnight shutdown. In the House that means passing it under “suspension of the rules” to avoid having to go through the Rules Committee. That will require a 2/3s vote in the House for passage, meaning Johnson will need a lot of Democrats to vote for it which he will get since Dems. are on board with this bill. Johnson is also setting aside the rule requiring that a Bill’s text be available to members for at least 72 hours before a vote is taken. So not only the Bill will piss off the MAGA Free-dumb Caucus in the House, Johnson’s breaking of this rule, a rule that he previously committed to never breaking, will certainly make their heads explode on the floor today, and may threaten Johnson’s Speakership.
Once it passes the House today, with probably more Democrats than Republicans voting for it, it goes to the Senate. That’s where a single Senator issuing the words “I object” could trigger a filibuster that could cause us to blow through the midnight deadline and partially shutdown the government. However, it is likely that Schumer will bring the Bill up under the silent filibuster rule which will allow a single vote on the bill, with 60 votes required for passage. He will likely get those 60 votes.
Still the timeframe is very tight and things could still go wrong. This is Congress we’re talking about here. However, they are all eager to start their two week Easter recess and most don’t want to leave and have part of the government shutdown. Whatever happens it should be raucous debate in the House, so grab your popcorn and tune into C-Span.
Senate Aid Bill Discharge Petition Watch — First, if you would like to get some background on this Discharge Petition, check out My previous comment.
Currently, we have 187 Democrats who have signed and (drum roll here), 1 Republican, leaving us 26 Democrats and 4 Republicans short of the 218 signatures needed on this Discharge Petition. So who was the one Republican to be the first to thumb his nose at the Speaker?
None other than Ken Buck who is leaving Congress at the end of today and who has apparently sought fit to give a Big Parting FU to his Caucus on the way out the door.
Since Congress will be out for 2 weeks, we will have to wait and see if there are more signings and whether Johnson will bend and put some sort of Ukraine Aid Bill on the floor.
Stay Tuned!