Both the House and Senate are in session this week to kick off the 118th Congress.
The Senate will meet on Monday to swear in the members who won their elections in the fall. Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) also plans to give his final Senate floor speech this afternoon before stepping down to become president of the University of Florida. Once the Senate concludes its procedural business for today, it will leave D.C. until later this month.
On the House side, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has still not secured enough votes to become Speaker. There are at least five members of the Freedom Caucus who have publicly stated they will not back McCarthy. Until this issue is resolved and a Speaker elected, the House will be unable to move forward with any additional business, including organizing the committee assignments for the new Congress.
Once a Speaker has been elected, the House is scheduled to consider a rules package that will re-adopt most of the rules from the last Congress. The resolution would also allow five Republicans to trigger a vote on removing the Speaker, eliminate proxy voting and remote committee proceedings spurred by the pandemic, rename some House committees, adopt budget procedures aimed at restricting mandatory spending increases, and repeal collective bargaining rules adopted last year.
Administration
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will be traveling the country this week to tout the Administration’s economic and infrastructure laws, including a visit to Kentucky alongside Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). On Friday, Biden will commemorate the anniversary of the Capitol insurrection at the White House.
House Side
Tuesday – Thursday, the House is scheduled to meet for legislative business, contingent upon election of a Speaker.
- Bills expected under a rule
- H.R. __ would rescind any unobligated funds provided to the Internal Revenue Service that were allocated through the Democrats’ spending package from last year by using the budget reconciliation process.
- H.R. __ would bar the Energy Department from drawing down and selling petroleum products from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to any entity owned, controlled, or influenced by the Chinese Communist Party or for export to China.
- H.Res. __ would create a House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party to investigate the status of the CCP’s economic, technological, and security progress and its competition with the United States.
- H.R. __ would require any state and local district attorney’s or prosecutor’s offices that serve a jurisdiction of 380,000 or more persons to annually report to the Justice Department on murder, rape, and other covered offenses.
- H.Con.Res.__ would express congressional support for the nation’s law enforcement agencies and reject the “misguided and dangerous efforts to defund and dismantle” them.