1st Session of 113th Congress Ends, 2nd Begins

One of those little noted political games took place today on Capital Hill. Just before the noon hour, both Houses of Congress, with only a limited number of members even in town, adjourned sine die, ending the 1^st session of the 113^th Congress. A few minutes later both bodies, again with the vast majority out-of-town, gaveled into being the 2^nd Session of the 113^th Congress.

All of this was driven by Section 2 of the 20^th Amendment (ratified January 23^rd, 1933). That section reads:

“The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.”

The House will hold its first real meeting of the 2^nd Session on Tuesday. The Senate will start on Monday.

Cybersecurity Legislation in 113th Congress

Here on the last day of 2013 it is appropriate to look back at the cybersecurity accomplishments of the 113^th Congress. The table below shows all of the cybersecurity bills that were introduced this year. The links to the bills and dates refer to my blog posts. While the House has passed a number of bills the Senate has only passed two; both were spending related bills that contained some cybersecurity measures.

	Passed in House	Passed in Senate	Notes
HR 86			Ed Grants
HR 624	4-18-13		CISPA - Info Sharing
HR 756	4-16-13		R&D Spending
HR 933	3-6-13	3-20-13	FY 2013 CR
HR 967	4-16-13		R&D Cyber-Physical Systems
HR 1163	4-16-13		FISMA Amendments
HR 1468			SECURE-IT
HR 1640			Cyber Warrior Act – S 658
HR 1960	6-14-13		FY 2014 NDA
HR 2281			Cyber Espionage – S 1111
HR 2397	7-24-13		FY 2014 DOD Spending
HR 2454			Aaron’s Law – S 1196
HR 2466			Trade Secrets Protection
HR 2556			Centers of Excellence
HR 2610			FY 2014 DOT Spending
HR 2787			FY 2014 DOC Spending
HR 3032			Includes CI Control Systems
HR 3107			Boots on the Ground Act
HR 3303			FDA Software
HR 3304	12-12-13	12-19-13	FY 2014 NDA
HR 3696			NCCIPA
S 21			Place Holder
S 658			Cyber Warrior Act – HR 1640
S 1034			FY 2014 DOD Spending
S 1111			Cyber Espionage – HR 2281
S 1196			Aaron’s Law – HR 2454
S 1197			FY 2014 NDA
S 1329			FY 2014 DOC Spending
S 1353			Cybersecurity Act
S 1429			FY 2014 DOD Spending
S 1638			Public Awareness

The 113th Legislation Page Is Now Active

Since there were so many people who accessed the new page on the site while it was under construction (I only do HTML once a year so it takes some time to debug), I thought that I would make a short announcement that the page was now fully functional with two whole pieces of legislation listed. Not to worry, more will be added as this Congress proceeds on its winding way.

The 113th Congress

Well the Senate and the House have officially convened the first session of the 113^th Congress. The leadership has been elected and we’re off on the start of a new legislative travail. Much has stayed the same from the 112^th; a firm Republican majority in the House, a narrow but ineffective Democratic majority in the Senate, and a Democratic President. The main players remain the same, but a number of Committee Chairs have changed hands and it is too early to be sure how much effect that will have on the legislative agenda and effectiveness.

While there will be some symbolic votes this week, and perhaps an important bill or two, most of the next couple of weeks will be dominated by housekeeping issues. Every Committee with a new Chair will have a revised web site (and none of the old links will work) and even some of the carryover Chairs will take the opportunity to update or change their site. The first one out of the box that I have noticed is the House Transportation Committee; their new home page is not yet operational but the biography of their new chairman {Rep. Shuster (R,PA)} and their Hearing Page are up and running.

The House Calendar calls for the House to be in session this week. Next week is currently planned to be a District Work Week, but that may change because of the way the Senate ‘fiscal cliff bill’ dealt with the sequester issue. The Senate has not yet posted their Calendar on their website yet.

Since all of the bills that were not passed in the 112^th Congress have now been sent to the archives, there will be a whole slew of fresh bills to offer. Every veteran lawmaker has a stack of their favorite bills that will be submitted again, once again in the hope that the pet project will finally make its way through the process and end up under the President’s pen.

There will be so many bills submitted that it will take weeks for them all to make their way into availability on the GPO web site. Typically I wait until I have a chance to actually read a bill before I announce its introduction here. This year I think I’ll change that out, at least for the month of January and report the bills of potential interest introduced the day before as their titles become available on the Thomas – Library of Congress web site. I will continue to provide my typical summary data of the bills that I think will be of interest to my readers as the text of the bill becomes available on-line.