House Amends and Re-Passes HR 3055 – FY 2020 CR

Yesterday the House took up the Senate amendment to HR 3055, FY 2020 spending minibus, and approved that amendment after substituting new language for the Senate amendment. The approval vote was nearly a party-line vote of 231 to 192 (10 Democrats and 12 Republicans switched sides). The bill goes to the Senate, probably today.

A party-line vote normally means that the bill will have a difficult time being considered in the Senate. It certainly would not normally be expected to be considered under the unanimous consent process; a single voice can stop that consideration. To be considered under regular order means that the bill would require a 2/3 vote on the debate cloture motion and a party-line vote normally means that there would not be sufficient vote to close debate.

Earlier this year when the House passed HR 4378, the current CR, the vote was more bipartisan; 301 to 123. The conservative members of the House generally object to continuing resolutions (especially short-term CRs) because they interfere with program changes and generally shortchange most spending programs.

That earlier CR passed in the Senate by a mostly bipartisan vote of 81 to 16. This was roughly the same percentage (about 70%) of yes votes in both the House and Senate. If that vote standard holds for this bill, HR 3055 may not pass the Senate as it would not be able to achieve cloture.

During yesterday’s debate, everyone agreed that continued funding of the Federal government was an important goal and that a full spending bill was needed. The Republican opposition to this CR, however, was outlined by Rep. Grainger (R,), Ranking Member of the Appropriations Committee (pg H9038):

“At that time [passage of HR 4378] the budget deal had just been signed into law, and the Senate had not yet started consideration of full appropriations measures for fiscal year 2020. By voting for the last CR, I argued at the time that we would provide enough time for appropriators in the House and the Senate to complete work on full-year appropriations bills.

“Unfortunately, not only has that not happened, there still has not even been an agreement reached on spending levels for those bills. No business in the world could survive on temporary funding doled out on a month-to-month basis. The uncertainty created by the habit Congress finds itself in of repeated CRs and the continual threat of a shutdown is crippling, especially for our military.”

The vote today in the Senate could go either way. And, if the bill does pass, we still have to wait for the last-minute decision by the President on whether or not he will sign the bill. Indications are that he will, but there is no telling what he will do when the time comes to act.

NOTE: The current CR expires at midnight tomorrow night.

Rules Committee to Reconsider HR 3055 as CR

Today the House Rules Committee will meet to formulate the rule to consider the Senate amendments to HR 3055, the first House minibus. The Committee will consider substitute language for the Senate amendment that will turn HR 3055 into a continuing resolution that would extend the date of the current CR until December 20^th, 2019.

The hearing web site shows that three amendments have been offered on the revised language. The current proposed language is very similar to HR 4378 (the current CR) and is a relatively clean CR. Two of the offered amendments (Amash and Womack) are more than a little controversial and are unlikely to make it to the floor of the House; where they would be rejected in near party-line votes anyway. The third, Brindisi, is a study and report amendment which are generally less controversial, but I doubt that it will be included either.

Given the Thursday deadline on the current CR, I expect that the House will take up this bill tomorrow and pass it with a significant bipartisan vote. The Senate may take it up tomorrow as well and it will make it to the President’s desk before midnight Thursday in any case. According to news reports, the White House has indicated that the President will sign it, but you never can tell.

There is one bid of potential bad news with HR 3055 being used as the vehicle for this CR. HR 3055 is the only spending bill that the Senate has been able to pass. This should have been the one spending bill that could have made it out of conference. Using it for a CR would seem to indicate that the conferees could not work out a deal on this bill. That bodes ill for an omnibus bill next month. We may still end up with a full year CR.

HR 4378 Passed in Senate – FY 2020 CR

Yesterday the Senate passed HR 4378, the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2020, and Health Extenders Act of 2019 by a bipartisan vote of 81 to 16. The Senate first took action on an amendment proposed by Sen. Paul (R,KY). That amendment would have reduced the spending rate during the duration of the CR by 2%. That amendment failed by a slightly closer margin of 24 to 73. The bill now goes to the President for signature.

There is an interesting article over at TheHill.com about the current prospects for getting spending bills done before this CR runs out on November 21^st, 2019. With the impeachment process having begun, I see little hope that an agreement can be reached on the more controversial programs (the Wall and immigration) so that a DHS spending bill can be passed. I suspect that we will go into 2020 facing a similar situation to that we saw earlier this year. The only question in my mind, how much of the government will be included in the shutdown this time.

Pundits have been pontificating that the impeachment move by Rep. Pelosi (D,CA) will put an end to legislative efforts in Congress. That is a gross, oversimplification {that is what pundits do, as opposed to gadflys like myself (GRIN)}. Controversial legislation will suffer (DHS spending would be a good example), but much of the legislative effort in Congress deals with either uncontroversial matters or matters where little actual action is being taken. Those measures will continue to make their way to the President’s desk.

Committee Hearings – Week of 09-22-19

This week with both the House and Senate in session (but preparing for a 2-week break) there is a full slate of politically oriented hearings slated in the House and the Senate Appropriations Committee will try to address some additional spending bills. Two markup hearings this week (one on each side of the Capital) will look at bills covered in this blog.

Senate Spending Bills – Markups

The Senate Appropriations Committee will try to get four spending bills reported to the Senate this week:

• Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies (IER) – Subcommittee – Tuesday;

• Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) – Subcommittee – Tuesday;

• DHS – Subcommittee – Tuesday;

• IER, CJS, DHS, and Legislative Branch – Full Committee - Thursday

I suspect that the IER and CJS bills may be successfully reported, but the DHS bill (because of ‘the Wall’ and immigration) is at the heart of the controversy holding up Senate consideration of spending bills. I really do not expect the Committee to report a DHS spending bill.

Markup Hearings

On Wednesday the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a markup hearing on three bills:

• HR 1975, the Cybersecurity Advisory Committee Authorization Act of 2019

• HR 4432, the Protecting Critical Infrastructure Against Drones and Emerging Threats Act

• HR ____, the National Commission on Online Platforms and Homeland Security Act

HR 4432 has not yet been published, either by the GPO or the Committee and the final bill has not yet been introduced (expected today?).

With only three bills on the agenda, we may see some amendments offered and very briefly discussed, but none have yet been published on the hearing page.

On Wednesday the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a markup hearing covering 21 bills.

• S 2095, the Enhancing Grid Security through Public-Private Partnerships Act;

• S 2333, the Energy Cybersecurity Act of 2019; and

• HR 1420, the Energy Efficient Government Technology Act

On the Floor

As I mentioned yesterday, the House is scheduled to take up HR 3710, the Cybersecurity Vulnerability Remediation Act on Wednesday. It will likely pass with significant bipartisan support, but I will be surprised if it is taken up in the Senate this year.

There is a good chance that the Senate could take up HR 4378, the continuing resolution that was passed last week. That bill would extend the current funding rate for the federal government through November 21^st. It would be taken up under the unanimous consent process and I suspect that Sen. McConnel (R,KY) would want to try to do that as soon as possible. That would leave room for the House to come up with a ‘cleaner’ CR if there is an objection to the bill in the Senate. The Senator to watch will be Sen. Paul (R,KY).

HR 4378 Passes in House – FY 2020 CR

On Thursday the House passed HR 4378, the FY 2020 continuing resolution by a somewhat bipartisan vote of 301 to 123. The bill was debated in the House for 42 minutes, but not a single voice was raised in opposition to the bill. The bill will probably be taken up in the Senate next week.

As I noted in an earlier post, this relatively lengthy ‘clean CR’ appears to have been negotiated to acceptance with the approval of the Senate leadership. It remains to be seen if there will be enough Republican votes for the bill in the Senate to push the bill to the floor for consideration. The lack of any speechified opposition to the bill in the House probably indicates that most of the votes were pro forma opposition to a CR and not a stand for a shut-down of the federal government.

The big question remains; will Trump sign the bill if it is presented to him. The answer to that will have to wait until he makes his final decision when the bill actually lands on his desk. Trump’s political capriciousness is becoming legendary.

Bills Introduced – 09-18-19

Yesterday with both the House and Senate in session there were 48 bills introduced. One of those bills will receive additional attention in this blog:

HR 4378 Making continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2020, and for other purposes. Rep. Lowey, Nita M. [D-NY-17]

This 43-page bill is the ‘clean continuing resolution’ that the House leadership is proposing to use to continue funding for the federal government (at the current funding rate) until November 21^st, 2019. The House Rules Committee was originally scheduled to take up ‘the bill’ on Tuesday, but that was canceled when it became apparent to the leadership that the Senate Republicans would have significant objections to some of the provisions of the bill. Presumably, and agreement has been reached that HR 4378 is ‘acceptable’ to the Senate leadership (and the President? No one knows for sure about that).

The Rules Committee will take up the bill this morning and provisions were made in H Res 558 (§3) to allow for consideration of the bill on the same day as the rule was adopted by the Rules Committee. Same day consideration of bills is not normally allowed by House rules.

OOOPS - Corrected date in post title to reflect date the bills were introduced - 09-20-19 0630 EDT