Capitol Hill Update: April 16, 2018

Schedule:

The House and Senate are in session this week.

House:

After last week’s failed smoke-and-mirrors vote on a balanced budget amendment, the House will spend most of this week passing bills on the suspension calendar.

Members of the house are also still reacting to last week’s news of Speaker Paul Ryan’s retirement come January 2019, so we can expect continued discussions around what the race for Speaker of the House will look like moving forward.

The House will come into session today, meeting at 2:00 p.m. for legislative business to consider six bills from the Natural Resources Committee on the suspension calendar: H.R. 3607, H.R. 4609, H.R. 3961, H.R. 146, H.R. 443, and S. 167. Votes will be postponed until 6:30 pm.

On Tuesday, the House will meet at 12:00 p.m. for legislative business to consider ten bills on the suspension calendar, one from the Judiciary Committee and nine from the Ways and Means Committee: H.R. 2905, H.R. 4403, H.R. 5440, H.R. 5446, H.R. 5438, H.R. 5437, H.R. 5439, H.R. 5443, H.R. 2901, and H.R. 1512. One bill will then be debated subject to a rule, the Protecting Children from Identity Theft Act, H.R. 5192.

Two bills subject to rules will be considered for the balance of the week, with votes Wednesday and Thursday and no votes expected on Friday. These bills are the Taxpayer First Act, H.R. 5444, and the 21st Century IRS Act, H.R. 5445, both from the Ways and Means Committee.

The House Agriculture Committee will markup the Agriculture and Nutrition Act, H.R. 2, on Wednesday, April 18. The business meeting begins at 10:00 am in 1300 Longworth. If all goes according to plan, the bill will be on the House floor the week of May 6. There is both good and bad in this bill. On one hand, the proposal strengthens work requirements for food stamps. All able-bodied adults between 18 and 59 will be required to work or participate in job training for 20 hours a week in order to receive benefits. This will help recipients become financially independent.

However, we also see some more of the same waste when it comes to subsidies, and they essentially offset the savings from the work requirements.

The full committee schedule can be found here.

Senate:

Last week, the Senate confirmed nine of the president’s nominees, three district judges and six agency appointees.

The Senate will come into session today, and resume consideration of the House message to accompany Tribal Labor Sovereignty, S. 140, as the House passed an amended version of the bill that the Senate passed.

The full committee schedule can be found here.