Today in Congress: 'compromise' reached on Ex-Im Bank bill (stop me if you've heard this one)

Recapping yesterday's action:

The House was not in session yesterday.

The Senate was working'by which I mean the Senators were present'and managed to clear two more judicial nominations, but they never got around to the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the Export-Import Bank bill. Just as well, because it looks like that vote was destined to fail, anyway. Republicans were holding up the works to demand votes on five amendments to weaken and/or eventually eliminate the bank, and as a bipartisan compromise, Democrats agreed to let them have two of them. Plus the other three. For a total of five. But hey, that's the nature of compromise.

As an added bonus, the Republicans have begun the Rule XIV process for putting the House reconciliation bill on the schedule. Reconciliation bills are privileged, which means the motion to proceed to this one will be non-debatable. Of course, a majority can simply defeat the motion. It still has to be voted on. It just can't be filibustered. Isn't that awesome, how the Republicans will get a pass on the filibuster on this? Hey, I guess there doesn't have to be any reform after all! Still, that's not eligible to come up today, so we'll come back to it later.

Looking ahead to today:

The House has a ho-hum Tuesday, filled with a slate of 11 suspension bills, and with votes (if any) postponed until 6:30. So there's really not much to talk about on that score.

Despite the agreement to move forward on the Ex-Im Bank bill, the Senate will still need to actually adopt the motion to proceed, which they'll get around to by agreement at around 11:15. After that, it's on to consideration of those five amendments, and finally a vote on the underlying bill itself. All amendments as well as the bill will require 60 votes to pass. A brief description of the amendments is included in the floor schedule, below. Suffice to say, they all suck if you're a fan of the Ex-Im Bank. I'm not 100% sure I give a crap, though, on the grounds adopted by the ultraconservatives, in fact. That is, that Ex-Im is really just so much corporate welfare.

Still, jobs and all that. No matter, as sucky as it feels to have a deal in place that gives Republicans all the votes they were demanding, in the end, it's probably not all that likely that any of the amendments will pass, but given the broad support in the House, the bill itself should.

Today's floor and committee schedules appear below the fold.