Recapping yesterday's action: The major business in the House yesterday was the passage of its horrible version of the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization bill. It only took Republicans an hour to destroy the thing, so they moved on after that to general debate on the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act.
The Senate spent its day on six hours of debate for five supposedly non-debatable motions, each one a motion to proceed to a different fake, nonbinding, and as it turned out, unpopular "budget" for FY2013. Why fake? We went over it yesterday, if you want a refresher.
Suffice to say, none of the motions to proceed to any of the budgets succeeded. Some came closer than others, and some became laughingstocks. Republicans, of course, will point to what Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, III (R-AL) offered under the claim that it was President Obama's budget, and which netted zero votes. But remember, it's the position of Senate Democrats that there are already binding spending caps in place, under the Budget Control Act that embodied the August debt ceiling and budget deal. So they're not really interested in voting for anything different, and there's no point in going on record in support of any budget that isn't going to pass, even the President's.
But that didn't stop Republicans, who joyfully went on record for budgets of varying levels of destructiveness, the worst of the bunch (Rand Paul's, of course) getting just 16 votes.
Looking ahead to today:
The House returns to consideration of the last big substantive item on its agenda for this week, the NDAA. So they're just about done, right? Wrong. There are 142 amendments made in order under the rule. That'll keep 'em busy for a while. But not too long. The schedule calls for last votes no later than 3 p.m. on Friday, and the House is, of course (say it with me!), taking another recess next week!
The Senate moves on to its next motion to proceed, which means Republicans are once again refusing to allow easy movement of bills to the floor, and the latest victim is S. 3187, a bill revising Food & Drug Administration user fees. I don't think seeing Republicans make procedural trouble on that is really a surprise to anyone.
That motion will be interrupted for executive session, and the consideration of two nominations for members of the Federal Reserve board. It looks like there's some objection to these two nominees (as there would be to just about anything or anyone, at this point), because there's an agreement for a 60-vote requirement for their approval. Originally, cloture motions had been filed on these nominations, but they've been vitiated in favor of the 60-vote deal. That sets up the same barrier in terms of vote counts, but it's a lot faster to get through if the vote succeeds, since a successful vote on cloture means there can still be 30 additional hours of debate before a vote on the nomination itself. And with two nominations pending, that could mean up to 60 hours wasted. But it's Thursday, and Senators want to get out of town for the weekend. Hence the deal for the "painless filibuster."
Yes, they could have made a deal agreeing that if cloture was successfully invoked, post-cloture time would be yielded back and the nomination itself would be considered approved. But Republicans probably don't really want the number of cloture votes taken to be driven any higher than it has to be right now. Especially with the renewed interest in filibuster reform. So are there 60 votes? I don't know. We'll find out, and Senators will get to take the weekend off. Best of both worlds!
Today's floor and committee schedules appear below the fold.
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