House Amends and Passes HJ Res 124

Earlier this evening the House passed the FY 2015 Continuing Resolution, HJ Res 124, after adopting the only amendment available for consideration. The Syrian rebel aid amendment passed in a by-partisan vote of 273 to 156; more Democrats supported it than there were Republicans who opposed the bill. The final vote was much more bipartisan with a final vote of 319 to 108.

This bill will extend government spending through December 11^th. It also extends the CFATS regulations through that date.

The Senate has until September 30^th to pass the bill.

Rules Committee Adopts Structure Rule for HJ Res 124

As I suggested Saturday, the House Rules Committee met this evening to develop the rule for the consideration of HJ  Res 124, the FY 2015 Continuing Resolution. The meeting had originally been scheduled for last week but was postponed at the request of President Obama so that the language supporting the training of Syrian rebel forces that also opposed the actions of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) could be added to the CR.

The Committee adopted a structure rule for the consideration of the bill as introduced (with a minor correcting amendment added to the existing language). The rule provides for a six hour debate of an amendment proposed by Rep. McKeon (R,CA), the Chair of the House Armed Services Committee. That amendment would provide the assistance to “appropriately vetted Syrian groups and individuals”.

This will be the only amendment that the structured rule would allow to be offered. The rule (H Res 722) will probably be debated tomorrow afternoon with the debate on the amendment and the two votes coming on Wednesday. Both the amendment and the bill will almost certainly pass in the House on Wednesday and in the Senate on Thursday.

Rule Committee Hearing on HJ Res 124 Postponed

Just a brief note published on the House Rules Committee website, the hearing that had been scheduled for today for HJ Res 124, the FY 2015 CR, has been postponed ‘subject to the call of the chair’. This almost certainly means that a vote will not happen on this continuing resolution this week. There is still plenty of time before October 1^st, but the House was not scheduled to be here for most of that time.

I haven’t seen any explanation of why the delay, but I suspect that it is because some Republicans have wanted to have various parts of their agenda tacked on to this ‘must pass’ bill. Or it could be too many objections to the short term extension of the Export-Import Bank authorization included in the bill.

Bills Introduced – 09-09-14

The second day back in Washington for pre-election posturing and there were 22 bills introduced in Congress. Only one of those will be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HJ RES 124 Latest Title: Making continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2015, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Rep Rogers, Harold (R,KY)

As I noted last night, this is a pretty clean CR with no significant political posturing. If the congressional crazies can keep their hands off of this bill then it has a good chance of passing and keeping the Federal Government running through the election. With spending provided through December 11^th this should allow for a reasonable post-election funding process.