Renaming the Gulf of Mexico in the House, Rubber Tires CRA in the Senate, Committees Continue Reconciliation Work
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.
Schedule and suspensions in the House: The House returns at 2:00 pm today for legislative business. Votes are postponed until 6:30 pm. The House will also be in session on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The last votes for the week are expected no later than 3:00 pm on Thursday. No votes are expected on Friday. Eighteen (18) bills are expected to be considered under the suspension of the rules (listed below). The cost estimates for those bills are available here.
H.R. 530, ACES Act (Veterans’ Affairs Committee)
H.R. 1912, Veteran Fraud Reimbursement Act (Veterans’ Affairs Committee)
H.R. 1503, Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)
H.R. 867, IGO Anti-Boycott Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)
H.R. 1512, To amend the Taiwan Assurance Act of 2020 to require periodic reviews and updated reports relating to the Department of State’s Taiwan Guidelines (Foreign Affairs Committee)
H.R. 1540, Falun Gong Protection Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)
H.R. 36, MEGOBARI Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)
H.R. 1486, Economic Espionage Prevention Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)
H.R. 1724, No Dollars to Uyghur Forced Labor Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)
H.R. 1316, Maintaining American Superiority by Improving Export Control Transparency Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)
H.R. 2416, Taiwan International Solidarity Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)
H.R. 1800, Solidify Iran Sanctions Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)
H.R. 1263, Strengthening the Quad Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)
Bills that come to the floor under suspension of the rules require two-thirds of members present and voting for passage. This is the most common way that bills considered by the House come to the floor. Some of these bills may be passed by a voice vote, rather than a roll call vote. Most bills that come to the floor under suspension aren’t widely considered controversial, although leadership may occasionally test a bill under suspension to gauge opposition or sneak a bill through the chamber.
A missing suspension: We’ll note that although the IGO Anti-Boycott Act, H.R. 867, is on the list of suspensions for this week sent out by the office of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), it was conspicuously absent from the schedule today that was emailed last night. Apparently, bipartisan opposition to the bill was expected on the floor, potentially putting it at risk.
Rule bills: The House Rules Committee will meet at 4:00 pm today to markup the rule providing for the consideration of the DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Entities of Concern Act, H.R. 881, and the Gulf of America Act, H.R. 276. The rescissions package from the White House to reduce budget authority for certain programs was expected to be on the floor this week, but it isn’t on the schedule.
Man, this is wholly inappropriate: You know, it takes a lot for me to say something is in bad taste, but considering the dumb bill to codify the “Gulf of America” in the same week as Cinco de Mayo is, well, a new level of bad look. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to see this bill on the floor this week–even when the Republican Party’s message is primarily about “owning the libs”–but I’ll admit that I was.
More reconciliation markups: As of this morning, there’s only one budget reconciliation-related markup scheduled. The House Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to begin its markup on Tuesday at 10:15 am. The committee will meet again if necessary on Wednesday at 10:00 am to complete the markup. The House Energy and Commerce Committee was supposed to begin work on its recommendations this week, but that has been delayed because of disagreements among Republicans on how to handle Medicaid. As of today, Armed Services, Education and the Workforce, Financial Services, Homeland Security, Judiciary, Oversight and Reform, and Transportation and Infrastructure have completed their recommendations.
A few other hearings of note: Two House Judiciary subcommittees will hold an oversight hearing for the Bureau of Prisons on Tuesday at 10:00 am. The House Crime Subcommittee has scheduled a hearing, titled “Criminalizing America: The Growth of Federal Offenses and Regulatory Overreach, on Tuesday at 2:00 pm. Finally, the House Budget Committee is holding a hearing on the fiscal state of the nation on Wednesday at 10:00 am.
House committee schedule: The full House 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 a CRA in the Senate: The Senate returns today at 3:00 pm. Around 5:30 pm, a roll call will begin on the motion to proceed to H.J.Res. 61–the “Rubber Tires CRA.” The House passed this disapproval resolution on March 5. (The Senate could vote on its version of this CRA, S.J.Res. 24.) The Senate will also consider the nomination of Frank Bisignano to serve as Commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Cloture was invoked on the nomination last week.
Just a reminder that the Senate isn’t as transparent as the House when it comes to legislation and nominations that may be considered. We usually know what’s happening at the beginning of the week, but it’s often unclear what will happen after that.
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.
About Trump’s budget: I’ve seen some reporting on the budget that the White House submitted for FY 2026. The budget would reduce nondefense discretionary spending by approximately $163 billion in the upcoming fiscal year. Look, budget proposals submitted by the White House are little more than a messaging exercise. Using the Congressional Budget Office baseline from January, the budget deficit would decline from the projected $1.897 trillion to $1.734 trillion. Am I supposed to be impressed by this? Nondefense discretionary spending isn’t what’s driving the budget deficit and debt, and until people wake up to that fact, we’re just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
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