Bills Introduced – 10-02-13

Yesterday the Congress was, for the most part, limiting its work to issues related to the current appropriations stand-off. Only 13 bills were introduced in both houses and all but one of them related to spending. Of those only two appear that they might be of specific interest to readers of this blog; HR 15 and SJ Res 23.

HR 15 Latest Title: Reserved for the Minority Leader. Sponsor: Rep Pelosi, Nancy  (D,CA), Rep Garcia, Joe (D,FL)

SJ RES 23 Latest Title: A joint resolution making continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2014, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Sen Cruz, Ted (R,TX)

I would bet that each of these proposals provide a way out of the current stand-off that have some unique aspects to them. Whether either will ever get officially considered is another question since the both come from members of the minority party in their respective house of congress.

The other spending measures that have been introduced and either passed or rejected yesterday in the House are limited in scope and of no specific interest to readers of this blog. I would like to think that the Republican leadership was proposing/passing these bills to ensure that the relatively non-controversial programs (and in at least some cases, favorite programs of many Democrats). Unfortunately, I’m afraid that they are being used to make sure that the Democrats in the House, the Senate and the President get their ‘fair share’ of the public blame for the continuing shutdown of the Federal Government.

BTW: I noted in a post on October 1sth that the GPO would not be printing legislation until this fiasco was over. I was mistaken as yesterday they made copies of HJ Res 67 and HJ Res 68 available on their web site. So this is one portion of the GPO operation that continues to operate during the government shutdown.