Today in Congress: more work on the doomed appropriations and student loan bills

Recapping yesterday's action:

The House spent its day on debate of and amendments to the Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill. Thirty-plus amendments were proposed and considered, and the votes were flying late into the night, preventing the timely posting of Wednesday's House floor schedule. Very few of the proposed amendments actually succeeded, including several that aimed to trim several billion dollars worth of spending, evidencing a split among Republicans between some of the more teabaggy types and the senior conservatives. Things that did pass included limiting amendments, like one prohibiting the Justice Department from using federal funds to challenge state immigration laws like Arizona's infamous SB1070, and a $1 million cut to the DOJ as punishment for what Republicans consider its non-responsiveness to subpoenas in the "Fast and Furious" investigation.

One other interesting side note from yesterday is that the rule for the appropriations bill actually had to include language fixing a mistake in the Republicans' attempt to deem their own budget passed:

Specifically, that April vote was on a resolution that accidentally referenced budget figures from a House-Senate conference report that does not exist, because the Senate has not passed a budget resolution on which the House would normally negotiate. Instead, the Tuesday fix refers to figures in the House Budget Committee's report on the GOP budget proposal. The figures in question related to the so-called section 302(a) budget allocations, which refer to the total discretionary spending level.

Incidentally, this may help answer the burning question from 2009 as to whether or not it was within the power of the Congress to amend a measure that had not yet become law. Well, it really wasn't a burning question, since the answer was always yes. But some people really got burned up about it, nonetheless. I suppose it could be argued that since yesterday's vote was about amending a concurrent resolution (which unlike a bill or joint resolution does not become law and is not presented to the President for signature), that the situation is not exactly analogous. But I note that no one even asked the question this time, and I suggest that's because everyone knows the answer always was yes.

The Senate... well, the Senate voted on cloture on the motion to proceed to the student loan bill, but was once again blocked from moving forward by Republicans. They did manage to get a number of non-controversial items taken care of by unanimous consent, but they were stymied on student loans, at least for the time being.

Looking ahead to today:

The House returns to consideration of the appropriations bill, with no one knows how many amendments still to come.

Plans in the Senate, at least for the moment, don't go beyond returning to the motion to proceed to the student loan bill and taking another shot at that. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) cast his vote against cloture yesterday, which entitles him to move to reconsider the vote and take another swing at it, as opposed to filing another cloture motion and having to wait two days to try again.

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