Committee Hearings – Week of 1-31-21

With both the House and Senate in Washington this week, the hearing schedule is still kind of lite as organizational issues predominate. There will be two House committees of interest holding their organizational meetings and the Senate will be focused on confirmation hearings for member of the Biden Cabinet. There is a House Rules Committee hearing of potential interest today.

Organizational Hearings

The House Armed Services Committee will hold their organizational meeting on Wednesday.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will hold their organizational meeting on Thursday.

Neither Committee has yet published a document outlining the jurisdiction of subcommittees the way the House Energy and Commerce Committee did last week.

FY 2021 Budget Resolution

The House Rules Committee will meet this afternoon to craft their rule for the consideration of H Con Res 11 [committee print, not GPO version], Establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2021. H Con Res 11 is the first step that will allow the Democrats to enact major portions of the Biden agenda via the budget reconciliation process. That would allow the House passed bills to be considered in the Senate without having to go through the cloture process. This would mean that the bills would only need 50 votes (plus VP Harris’ tie breaking vote) to pass them.

H Con Res 11 will probably be considered tomorrow by the full House. It will pass on a party-line vote.

Senate Confirmations

The Senate will vote on the confirmation of Alejandro Mayorkas to be Homeland Security Secretary. He will almost certainly be approved by the Senate with significant opposition from the Republicans.