The House Administration Committee held a hearing on Congressional unionization on Wednesday, March 2, 2022. Congress approved legislation providing for unions a quarter-century ago and the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights (OCWR) promulgated regulations on how unionization would work at the time, but tricky language in that law requires the House to act (by a […]
Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your regular look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Tell your friends to subscribe. TOP LINE The House and Senate are both in session today. This week Congress will attempt to pass the spending omnibus — which may include emergency supplementals for Ukraine and Covid-19 — before government funding expires Friday. We’re keeping our eyes […]
TOP LINE Calendar. The Senate is back today; the House is back tonight. We’re watching Wednesday’s House Admin hearing on unionization, the State of the Union is on Tuesday, and Demand Progress is co-hosting a panel discussion on presidential emergency powers on Wednesday (RSVP here) — ICYMI, lawmakers wrote this letter calling for an AUMF […]
Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your regular look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Tell your friends to subscribe. TOP LINE Happy recess. Last week the Senate managed to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government through March 11. Apparently appropriators have reached an agreement on the top line numbers for the appropriations subcommittees, […]
Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your regular look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Tell your friends to subscribe. TOP LINE Schedule. The Senate is in this week; the House has a committee workweek. Both are on recess next week. The committee calendar is light, but I’ll be busy. On Thursday the House Admin Committee will […]
Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your regular look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Tell your friends to subscribe. TOP LINE This week. The House is scheduled to be in from Monday to Wednesday, with a light legislative calendar that might get heavier to address the FY 2022 appropriations bill and unionization in the House. After […]
Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your regular look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Tell your friends to subscribe. This week. The Senate is back today; the House is back tomorrow. Appropriations run out on February 18th, so expect a short CR, an omnibus bill, or a shutdown. Looking at scheduled committee proceedings, we see separate Tuesday HSGAC […]
Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your regular look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Tell your friends to subscribe. THIS WEEK This week. The Senate returns to its regularly scheduled programming (recess) after a busy week and won’t return until Jan. 31; the House is out until Feb. 1. Committee activity is minimal. The February 18th deadline to […]
Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your regular look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Tell your friends to subscribe. THE TOP LINE It’s Tuesday, Lemon. The House is back today after the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday with an apparently light floor schedule; the Senate canceled recess to try again to move voting rights […]
Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your regular look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Tell your friends to subscribe. THE TOP LINE This week. The House is back Monday evening with a quorum call to start the second session of the 117th Congress; the Senate is back on Monday as well. The floor and […]
Federal inspectors general routinely publish their findings online. This helps hold federal agencies to account by creating public and internal pressure to address the concerns raised by the IG and creating a record should they fail to fix problems. However, the Capitol Police Inspector General is one of a handful of IGs that withholds their […]
Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your regular look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Tell your friends to subscribe. January’s 6th’s anniversary is this Thursday and so far no one of significance has been held accountable for the Trump insurrection, Republicans blocked a 9/11 style commission, the Select Committee will turn into a […]