Bills Introduced – 09-29-13

The House was busy yesterday with spending issues. Not only did they amend and re-pass the continuing resolution they also introduced a number of other bills related to how spending should be accomplished in the coming months. Two of those bills might be of specific interest to readers of this blog.

HR 3210 Latest Title: Making continuing appropriations for military pay in the event of a Government shutdown. Sponsor: Rep Coffman, Mike (R,CO)

HR 3213 Latest Title: Making appropriations for all departments and agencies of the Federal Government for fiscal year 2014, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Rep Grayson, Alan (D,FL)

HR 3214 Latest Title: Making continuing appropriations for personnel critical to national security during a Government shutdown. Sponsor: Rep Gallego, Pete P. (D,TX)

The alert reader will note that I listed three bills not two. I’ve included HR 3210 which also passed last night because I can now list the author of the bill and a GPO copy of the bill as introduced is now available. This saves me a blog post.

The Grayson bill, Fiscal Sanity Act of 2013, is a full year continuing resolution that is short, sweet and incomplete. All real CRs follow a pretty standard format with a lot of necessary legislative gobbledygook. This bill deals with funding the federal government for FY 2014 and deals with the debt ceiling for all of 2014 in three short (two pages) sections. Unfortunately that doesn’t get the job done. For example, there is no language explicitly extending the CFATS authorization. Fortunately, since Grayson is not a member of the Appropriations Committee and is a Democrat to boot, there is no way that this bill will ever see the light of day; political grandstanding at its worst.

The Gallego bill has not yet been received/published by the GPO so it is not clear just exactly who is ‘critical to national security’. It could even include CFATS inspectors. I suspect that the bill will give the DOD and DHS Secretaries authority to decide who is critical. That would be an interesting last minute decision process to watch.

We’ll have to wait and see when it is printed. 

BTW: If the government shuts down on Tuesday, we probably won’t see an official version until after the fiasco is over.

House Passes Both Amendments to HJ Res 59 and HR 3210

Late Saturday night the House passed both amendments to HJ Res 59, dumping the ball back in the Senate’s court. Amendment #1 which did not include the Obamacare language passed by a slightly bipartisan vote of 248 to 174 with 17 Democrats voting with all of the Republicans on the amendment. Amendment #2, which was identical to the first amendment with an additional section postponing the Obamacare implementation one year, lost two Republican and 15 Democrat votes to pass by a vote of 231 to 192.

It is still not clear how the slightly contradictory versions of language for HJ Res 59 would actually operate. Both bills specifically replaced the Senate language in the bill. The second amendment did not modify the bill as revised by the first amendment. I suspect, however, that is what the parliamentarians will decide happened in effect, so it will look as if the first amendment never actually took place.

The interesting part of the vote is that the 17 Democrats that joined the Republican majority on Amendment #1 could be enough votes to offset a conservative vote against a Senate bill that removed just the Obamacare delay. . It depends on just how many Republicans that would put their political principals above shutting down the government.

HR 3210, the military pay bill that I described late last night, passed by a unanimous vote. It should also be able to pass in the Senate on Monday, so at least the military folks would have some guarantee that there pay would continue even if the House and Senate can’t get together on a funding bill by Monday midnight.

House Rules Committee Rule for 2nd Consideration of HJ Res 59

The House Rules Committee approved H Res 366 a rule for the consideration of HJ Res 59 as amended by the Senate. This resolution provides for the House to choose between two versions of substitute language for HJ Res 59 and the consideration of HR 3210, the Pay Our Military Act; a bill designed to ensure that military members and critical DOD civilians and contractors would continue to get paid if the government is shut down by the failure to approve a FY 2014 spending bill.

The Solomon Decision

Both of the proposed substitute languages {the Paulsen (R,MN) and the Blackburn (R,TN) amendments} proposed by the rule would, according to the Rules Committee web site:

• Repeal the Medical Device Excise Tax;

• Amend the expiration date of the CR to be December 15, 2013;

• Make a technical change to the Eisenhower Memorial Commission provision; and

• Add a new provision to extend the authority for the U.S. to issue Special Immigrant Visas.

The Blackburn Amendment would have the added effect of postponing the implementation of Obamacare for one year.

It looks like the leadership believes that Paulsen amendment may be an acceptable (to the Democrats) alternative to shutting down the government. Allowing it to be considered first would allow some Democrats to vote for the adoption of the language. It certainly won’t be acceptable to the conservative faction of the House that is trying hardest to kill Obamacare. If enough Democrats vote for the Paulsen amendment to overcome the objections of the conservative faction of the Republican Party then this could pass.

What I am not clear on is whether or not the passage of the Paulsen Amendment would stop the consideration of the Blackburn Amendment. If it does, then the bill would go to the Senate and Sen. Reid and company would have to decide if they want to shut down the federal government. They would probably blink and pass the bill since their most vehement objection would have been removed.

If the Blackburn Amendment comes to a vote it would probably pass. If the Paulsen Amendment were not in the picture, it would certainly pass on a straight party-line vote. The question would be how many moderate Republicans would vote against it after supporting the Paulsen Amendment.

If the Paulsen Amendment is passed and sent to the Senate the Speaker is going to face some loud calls for his resignation from the right. The conservatives will have been defeated in one of their most dearly held fights by the action of the Republican leadership. The remainder of this term would be a very tense and trying time for the Republican caucus.

If the Paulsen Amendment fails, the Speaker will clearly and publicly place the blame on the Democrats if the Senate does not concur (and it won’t) with the Blackburn version of HJ Res 59. Whether that blame will stick won’t be clear until a year from now when the next congressional elections role around.

HR 3210

This bill, introduced by… hmm there is no introducer’s name that I can find on the House Rules Committee web site, oh well. This bill would insure that military pay would continue if a continuing resolution doesn’t pass before October 1^st or if any time this year the government is left without funding. It specifically requires meeting the payroll for active duty military (and Guard and Reserve personnel on active duty) and Coast Guard on military duty. It would also require meeting the payroll for selected DOD (and DHS for Coast Guard) civilian and contractor personnel who are directly supporting military operations. The Secretaries would determine who would be ‘selected’ and report that back to Congress.

This is a motherhood and apple pie bill and should pass with some bipartisan support, though the support from Democrats will be grudging.

H Res 366 Passed in House

As I finish writing this blog post I notice that the House has completed their one-hour debate on H Res 366 and just passed the bill. The vote tally was not yet available on House Clerk’s web site but I suspect that it was a fairly straight party-line vote. The final result for HJ Res 59 will probably be done by midnight.