Appropriations

Accountability and Oversight, Appropriations, Continuity and Resiliency, Ethics and Influence, Modernization, Rules, First Branch Forecast, Blog posts

Forecast for July 20, 2020

By DanielSchuman July 20, 2020 15 min read

THE TOP LINE The House Appropriations Committee finished its deliberations this past week, favorably reporting bills from its 12 subcommittees and marking the end of an era with Rep. Lowey’s forthcoming retirement as Chair. As we noted last week, this included much needed investments in the Legislative Branch, reclaiming Congress’ power of the purse, and increased transparency […]

Tags: War Powers, PLUM Act, SCOTUS, Legislation, NDAA, Budget Justifications, Caucus Rules, Proxy Voting, Office of Legal Counsel, Access to Court Proceedings

Accountability and Oversight, AI and Emerging Technology, Appropriations, Congressional Security, Continuity and Resiliency, Ethics and Influence, Modernization, Rules, First Branch Forecast, Blog posts

Forecast for July 13, 2020.

By DanielSchuman July 13, 2020 16 min read

THE TOP LINECongress may finally have begun investing in itself — House appropriators favorably reported a 5% increase in funding for the Legislative Branch. That’s half of the 10% increase sought by good government types (like us), and while Congress is still significantly below its funding level from a decade again, we are starting to dig out of […]

Tags: Government Accountability Office, Diversity and Inclusion, Office of Congressional Ethics, US Capitol Police, NDAA, Caucus Rules

Appropriations, Congressional Workplace Fairness and Inclusion, Ethics and Influence, Modernization, First Branch Forecast, Blog posts

Forecast for July 6, 2020.

By DanielSchuman July 6, 2020 18 min read

Welcome back. This week will be busy in the House, so let’s go! THE TOP LINE The House Appropriations subcommittees are holding mark-ups all week, plus a Thursday vote on the 302(b) allocations and full committee markups on Thursday and Friday. The full schedule is at the bottom of this email. • One notable change: for the […]

Tags: Proxy Voting, NDAA, Office of Congressional Ethics, Diversity and Inclusion, Government Accountability Office

Accountability and Oversight, Appropriations, Continuity and Resiliency, Modernization, Rules, First Branch Forecast, Blog posts

Forecast for June 29, 2020

By DanielSchuman June 29, 2020 12 min read

THE TOP LINE Musical chairs. The House of Representatives will have new committee chairs in the 117th Congress, but how will they be chosen? That’s a difficult enough question that we dig into it below. NDAA. House Armed Services will markup the NDAA on Wednesday; on Monday, the Senate will resume consideration of the motion to […]

Tags: Inspector General, Government Accountability Office, Legislation, NDAA, Caucus Rules, Proxy Voting

AI and Emerging Technology, Appropriations, Continuity and Resiliency, Ethics and Influence, Modernization, First Branch Forecast, Blog posts

Forecast for June 22, 2020

By DanielSchuman June 22, 2020 14 min read

THE TOP LINE Appropriations subcommittee markups are now two weeks away, but there’s no agreement or public statement on how much money will be available to the 12 appropriations subcommittees. Today we released a letter urging a $500 million increase (+10%) in funding available for the legislative branch appropriations subcommittee, co-drafted with the Lincoln Network and signed by […]

Tags: Inspector General, US Capitol Police, SCOTUS, Legislation, Proxy Voting

Appropriations, Advocacy, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

Appropriations Cheat Sheet: Reforms To Include In 2021 Spending Bills

By DanielSchuman June 16, 2020 3 min read

The 2021 appropriations process is ramping up with markups scheduled over next month and just a few months left before the end of the fiscal year. Appropriations bills can be a vehicle for institutional reform; we would like to elevate a few modernization ideas from a number of civil society organizations that lawmakers may wish […]

Tags: Leg Support Agencies, Congressional Ops

Appropriations, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

Changes In Discretionary Spending: 20+ Years of Data

By DanielSchuman June 16, 2020 1 min read

Congress is working on the federal government’s spending plan for Fiscal Year 2021. How will spending levels compare to the past? Here are the top line numbers for the last fifteen years. Here’s the upshot:

Tags: Congressional Data

Accountability and Oversight, Appropriations, Congressional Workplace Fairness and Inclusion, Ethics and Influence, Modernization, First Branch Forecast, Blog posts

Forecast for June 15, 2020

By DanielSchuman June 15, 2020 11 min read

THE TOP LINE The House schedule has changed again: June 25 and 26 are for police reform legislation; the week of June 29 is for health care and infrastructure (!!!!); and the last two weeks of July are for Appropriations and NDAA. Apropos approps: Oddly, the Senate will start approps mark-ups first, and some subcommittee bills will go directly […]

Tags: Staff Clearances, NDAA, House Ethics Committee, Diversity and Inclusion, Staff Pay, Government Accountability Office, Inspector General

Accountability and Oversight, Appropriations, Congressional Security, Continuity and Resiliency, Ethics and Influence, First Branch Forecast, Blog posts

Forecast for June 8, 2020

By DanielSchuman June 8, 2020 16 min read

THE TOP LINE Police reform takes center stage. Widespread outrage over the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, combined with dozens of videos of police attacking non-violent demonstrators, the use of unidentified internal security forces to police DC streets, and more than 140 police attacks on the press have elevated public pressure on Congress to address systemic police misconduct. […]

Tags: Proxy Voting, Inspector General, NDAA, Legislation, Surveillance, US Capitol Police, PLUM Act, Foreign Lobbying

Appropriations, Appropriation Tracking, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

June Update: Legislative Branch FY2020 Appropriations Items Due Dates

By DanielSchuman June 1, 2020 4 min read

Late last year, Congress passed the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill for FY 2020, starting the clock on dozens of Leg. Branch projects and reports across several legislative agencies. In January, our team reviewed requests from the Leg. Branch approps bill, broke them down by entity, and organized each of the deadlines. All requests are organized […]

Accountability and Oversight, Appropriations, Continuity and Resiliency, Ethics and Influence, First Branch Forecast, Blog posts

Forecast for May 11, 2020

By DanielSchuman May 11, 2020 16 min read

Will the House come back this week? Will Congress turn on remote deliberations? Is it really 142 days from the end of the fiscal year? There are lots of good questions (et tu, Senate) that we address this week. If we’ve missed something, ask us on Wednesday at 5pm at this virtual panel discussion on Continuity of […]

Tags: Office of Legal Counsel, US Capitol Police, SCOTUS, Surveillance, Proxy Voting, Access to Court Proceedings, War Powers

Accountability and Oversight, Appropriations, Congressional Security, Continuity and Resiliency, Ethics and Influence, First Branch Forecast, Blog posts

Forecast for May 5, 2020.

By DanielSchuman May 5, 2020 9 min read

You may have noticed that you didn’t receive this week’s First Branch Forecast on Monday. This newsletter takes a team to write, and with so much happening last week and over the weekend, I ran out of time to finalize it on Sunday. Here is an abbreviated version. COMING UP THIS WEEK Wednesday at 2 […]

Tags: Remote Voting

Forecast for July 20, 2020

Forecast for July 13, 2020.

Forecast for July 6, 2020.

Forecast for June 29, 2020

Forecast for June 22, 2020

Appropriations Cheat Sheet: Reforms To Include In 2021 Spending Bills

Changes In Discretionary Spending: 20+ Years of Data

Forecast for June 15, 2020

Forecast for June 8, 2020

June Update: Legislative Branch FY2020 Appropriations Items Due Dates

Forecast for May 11, 2020

Forecast for May 5, 2020.

Media Center

Contact Us

Subscribe to first branch forecast