Glory, glory to old Georgia: I know some of you didn't care for this game because Georgia absolutely annihilated TCU. (And a few of you texted to tell me that it was boring because it wasn't a game.) Let me be absolutely clear here. I don't care. Blowout wins are so satisfying. I've been watching Georgia football since I was a kid and going to games since I was 13. I lived through the Ray Goff years, the re-emergence of the program under Jim Donnan, and the "almost good enough" years under Mark Richt. I called a buddy before kick-off and said that I thought this game felt like the 2007 Sugar Bowl. Georgia played Hawaii in that game. Hawaii was the Cinderella story of that season and came into the Sugar Bowl undefeated. Georgia won that game 41 to 10. We'll take our back-to-back National Championships, and we're going to compete for a third.
Activity in the House through Tuesday: Since the House is in session and there have been votes this week, I thought an update would be warranted. The House passed the rules on Monday without any drama. rules votes are usually party-line, but there was some thought there would be Republican defections because of the deals that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) cut to win the gavel. There ended up being only one defection, Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-TX). The rules package, H.Res. 5, passed by a vote of 220 to 213. The House also passed the Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act, H.R. 23, by a vote of 221 to 210. The House established the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party through H.Res. 11 in a broad bipartisan vote of 365 to 65. Another select committee, the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government was approved through H.Res. 12 by a vote of 221 to 211. This select committee will be a House Judiciary subcommittee.
What’s on tap for the rest of the week: Today, the House is expected to consider a concurrent resolution, H.Con.Res. 3, condemning attacks on pro-life facilities, groups, and churches and the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, H.R. 26. Tomorrow, the House is expected to consider the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act, H.R. 27, and the Protecting America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve from China Act, H.R. 22. No votes are expected on Friday.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯: Okay, so, the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act may be one of the most poorly drafted bills I’ve ever seen. The bill isn’t a serious exercise in legislating anyway. It’s a messaging bill. It’s getting a vote because House Republicans want to keep their base engaged. That said, I’m surprised it’s even on the floor. The bill amends 34 U.S.C. §10151 to add reporting requirements related to prosecutions in certain jurisdictions. The reporting requirements are tied to Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne JAG) eligibility for these jurisdictions. Let me show you how poorly drafted this bill is. Here is part of the text of the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act.
What's funny is that the subsections to be amended in 34 U.S.C. §10151 aren't in the statute referenced. The only subsection in the statute are (a) and (b). That's it, and it's not a particularly long statute. Just look.
Sure, it's a drafting error. The likely statute that should've been amended by this bill is 34 U.S.C. §10152. Still, it’s a bad look.
Committee chairs and committee name changes: I forgot to mention this on Monday, but a couple of House committees have been renamed. This is something of a routine when control of the House changes hands. The Education and Labor Committee is now the Education and the Workforce Committee. The Oversight and Reform Committee is now the Oversight and Accountability Committee. I'm still going to call it "OGR," in reference to Oversight and Government Reform, which was the name of the committee from January 2007 until January 2017. And we also have the names of the chairs of the standing committees.
The movement to let C-SPAN control the cameras in the House: The Speaker controls the cameras in the House, but there is a bipartisan push to change that. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) plans to introduce legislation to allow C-SPAN to control the cameras in the chamber. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL ) is introducing an amendment to the Rules of the House to do the same. Separately, C-SPAN has asked for control of the cameras in the chamber. All of this stems from the rounds of voting for Speaker when C-SPAN showed what was happening around the House, including showing members, occasionally from different parties, talking to each other. Admittedly, I have mixed feelings about this. I'm a big proponent of transparency, but there's no question that allowing cameras in Congress and committees is one thing that has contributed to the grifting in politics.
Deficit watch: The budget deficit through the first quarter of FY 2023 is $418 billion. The deficit would've been larger, $455 billion, without timing shifts. The Congressional Budget Office explains, "Outlays in fiscal year 2023 were reduced by the shifting of certain payments—totaling $63 billion—from October 1, 2022 (the first day of fiscal year 2023), into fiscal year 2022 because October 1 fell on a weekend. In addition, as was the case in fiscal year 2022, outlays increased in the first quarter of this fiscal year (through December 2022) because certain payments that otherwise would have been due on January 1, a holiday, were instead made in December. If those various shifts had not occurred, the first-quarter deficit in fiscal year 2023 would have been $455 billion, or $102 billion more than the first-quarter deficit of $353 billion in fiscal year 2022, an increase of 29 percent." Tax receipts were down 2 percent while outlays were up 1 percent. It’s worth noting, as I’ve mentioned before, that April is usually a surplus month for the federal government because of tax filing.
Sentencing Commission report on marijuana: The U.S. Sentencing Commission has a new report out on the impact of simple possession of marijuana. The report, Weighing the Impact of Simple Possession of Marijuana: Trends and Sentencing in the Federal System, is an update to a 2016 report and looks at the federal trends for simple possession of marijuana.
The House is out next week: There won’t be a Point of Order next week. We’ll be back the week of January 23.