Senate to Work on Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act, August Recess Begins Early in the House, FPOA Signed Into Law
Jason Pye - Vice President, Due Process Institute
Point of Order is a (mostly) weekly preview of key congressional activity for those with more than a passing interest in federal policy.
Nominees and the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act in the Senate: The Senate returns on Tuesday at 3:00 pm to resume consideration of the nomination of Stacey D. Neumann to serve as a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine. Around 5:30 pm, the Senate will take a roll call on the confirmation of Adam B. Landy to serve as a judge on the U.S. Tax Court. The Neumann nomination will be on the floor on Tuesday. The Senate is also expected to continue the consideration of the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act. The text of the legislation is S.Amdt. 3021. S. 2073 is the vehicle for the legislation. The Senate will vote to concur with the House amendment to S. 2073 with the Senate amendment, S.Amdt. 3021.
Menendez expected to resign: Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) will resign from his seat on August 20. Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) is expected to very quickly name someone to fill the seat. Democrats’ majority will temporarily drop to 50 seats, but the successor will likely be sworn in as soon as possible.
Senate committee schedule: The full Senate committee schedule for the week is here. If you’re interested in watching any of these hearings online, you can find committee websites here.
We’ve got an early recess in the House: Last Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced that votes were canceled the next day and the week of July 29. More on why in a moment. The House is getting an early start on the August recess. Although there are pro forma days scheduled throughout the next several weeks, the House won’t return until Monday, September 9.
Lol nothing matters: The House broke for the August recess after Republican leadership canceled votes this week after it became clear that there wasn’t a path forward for remaining appropriations bills. Through last week, the House passed five of the 12 appropriations bills. Another one failed. It’s possible that the Speaker will try to put the remaining bills on the floor in September, but the appropriations process that we’ve seen play out has always been a charade because the House-passed bills have no path forward in the Senate. We’re looking at a continuing resolution (CR) before on or before the September 30 government funding deadline. Everyone knows it. The only question is, how long does that CR run? Presumably, it’ll run until at least some point in December, but a new occupant of the White House, regardless of party, will want to have his or her priorities reflected in FY 2025. So, a March deadline in the next round seems like a real possibility. You can check on the status of House and Senate appropriations bills here.
Bipartisan task force to investigate Trump shooting: Speaker Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) agreed on the framework for a bipartisan task force to investigate the recent attempt on the life of Donald Trump. The resolution creating the task force, H.Res. 1367, passed the House without opposition last week.
We need open primaries across the board: Bipartisan legislation introduced by Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA, Jared Golden (D-ME), Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) would allow unaffiliated voters to participate in taxpayer-funded primary elections. Not every state has a closed primary system, but many do. This would allow voters who don’t register as a Democrat or Republican access to those primaries if they so choose. The bill is the Let America Vote Act, H.R. 9144. This bill, though, is one of many election reforms that Congress and state legislatures should consider. Ranked-choice voting is a reform that needs to be taken seriously as a way to mitigate hyper-partisanship.
FPOA is now law: President Biden signed the Federal Prison Oversight Act, H.R. 3019, into law on Thursday. Congrats to everyone who worked on FPOA! This is an important win that reformers need to use to build more bipartisan success in the criminal justice reform space.
And we’re on a break: Unless there’s big news or Congress comes back into session, Point of Order will take a break until Monday, September 9.
Due Process Institute is a bipartisan nonprofit that works to honor, preserve, and restore principles of fairness in the criminal legal system. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.