Congress is back for what will probably be the last week of legislative work before the November election. They are scheduled to vote on the Continuing Resolution (CR) on Thursday and adjourn Friday until the 12th of November when they come back for organization meetings. It appears that Speaker Boehner has agreed to a deal […]
Senate Leaders apparently reached a deal late last night, staff are working out technical details and the plan is to brief their respective caucuses today. They should be able to pass this in the Senate today or tomorrow. The House situation remains the same with at this point no real way out except for House […]
After the Senate stayed in to vote against any proposal sent over by the House (which Majority Leader Reid indicated would happen) the federal government officially shut down last night at 12:01. The debate is now over how long the shutdown will last and will the House give up on defunding or changing Obamacare. The […]
The Senate is scheduled to vote on the Continuing Resolution (CR) today starting around 12:30 our time. Clean CR – no language on funding (or not funding) Obamacare – will be considered and passed out of the Senate funding the Federal Government through November, 15, 2013. The House is scheduled to be in over the […]
The House and Senate are moving forward on reauthorizing the Farm Bill. Last week after a daylong session, even with a three-hour break, the House Agriculture Committee finished marking up its bill at 11:45 last Wednesday night. The Senate brought their bill to the floor this week and will be adjourning for the Memorial Day […]
The House starts their mark up at 10 a.m. this morning with about 80 amendments filed. Not all will be considered, some will be incorporated into the Chairman’s amendment and like yesterday some will be debated and pulled for potential floor consideration. Expect a lot of debate on SNAP programs as the House bill will […]
White House Releases FY 2014 Budget by Glynda Becker, Director for Federal Relations and Mariah Luft, Assistant Director for Federal Relations It is budget week here in Washington, DC. After a two-month delay, President Obama released his FY 2014 budget proposal. The $3.78 trillion proposal includes a mixture of entitlement cuts to Medicare, Social Security […]
With the clock ticking, President Obama met with Congressional leaders today in a short and unsuccessful hour long meeting to see if they could reach some kind agreement to mitigate the midnight deadline for the sequester. Members walked out in the same position they walked into the White House with – no agreement. The White […]
On Sunday, Politico ran the following opinion editorial by Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) former Secretary of Education and Hunter Rawlins III, president of the Association of American Universities (AAU). The piece highlights a study released by the National Research Council titled “Research Universities and the Future of America”. Both the study and article emphasize the […]
Today the House passed the STEM Jobs Act of 2012. House Resolution 6429, introduced by Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) after first failing to pass the House under suspension of the rules requiring a two-thirds majority vote. HR 6429 outlines a path to permanent residency for foreign students graduating with Masters or Doctorate degrees in STEM […]