Continuity and Resiliency

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

Forecast for May 26, 2020

By DanielSchuman May 26, 2020 11 min read

THE TOP LINE The Senate is out for Memorial Day recess; the House will be in for votes tomorrow and Thursday. (Yes, today is Tuesday. Welcome back.) Speaker Pelosi triggered a 45-day emergency period for remote committee and floor deliberations on May 20th; we calculate the end-date as July 4th, unless it is extended. Members can opt to vote by […]

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

Forecast for May 18, 2020

By DanielSchuman May 18, 2020 16 min read

What a week. On Friday, the House adopted a remote voting resolution (H. Res. 965) that provides for proxy voting on the floor, remote committee hearings, and creates a pathway for remote voting on the floor and remote mark-ups in committees. In other words, the House can function for the foreseeable future despite the COVID-19 […]

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Continuity and Resiliency, Rules, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

Initial Thoughts on the House’s Remote Deliberation Resolution

By DanielSchuman May 13, 2020 6 min read

This morning, House Rules Committee Democrats introduced a resolution (H. Res 965) that would provide for some remote deliberations for House committees and on the floor. Accompanying that resolution was a Dear Colleague from the Rules Committee that explains how the resolution would work, a one-page explainer, and a statement from the Democratic members of […]

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Continuity and Resiliency, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

Remote Deliberations: Terms of the Trade

By DanielSchuman May 12, 2020 2 min read

Congress is beginning to innovate around how it deliberates in committees and on the floor. These changes are driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has made in-person meetings unsafe and unwise, although many of the proposed modifications require rules changes. We have seen various terms used to refer to how Congress could deliberate — e.g. […]

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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 […]

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Continuity and Resiliency, Rules, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

Continuity of Congress: A Timeline of Remote Deliberations and Voting

By DanielSchuman May 8, 2020 1 min read

Congress has been mostly absent as the country fights against the COVID-19 pandemic. Even before the pandemic began, many lawmakers, outside organizations, and former Members of Congress encouraged the legislative branch to instantiate remote deliberations and voting measures in the event of an emergency.  We created a timeline of many of the recent key events […]

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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 […]

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Continuity and Resiliency, Rules, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

Can Online Presence Count Towards A Quorum?

By DanielSchuman May 4, 2020 1 min read

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a fantastic report last week analyzing the constitutional rules governing quorum requirements to coincide with last week’s virtual hearing on Continuity of Senate Operations and Remote Voting in Times of Crisis. If you’re not a policy wonk who finds quorum requirements inherently interesting, consider this: Determinations around remote […]

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Continuity and Resiliency, Rules, Reports & Analysis

Continuity of Congress Play-By-Play For The Week Ending May 2, 2020.

By DanielSchuman May 4, 2020 4 min read

CONTINUITY OF CONGRESS: House of Representatives Activity on remote proceedings for the past week fills two pages on our ongoing timeline.  Sunday was not a day of rest, as the New Dems Coalition sent a second letter to House Leadership, urging them to bring a remote voting resolution to the floor no later than May […]

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Continuity and Resiliency, Ethics and Influence, First Branch Forecast, Blog posts

Forecast for April 27, 2020.

By DanielSchuman April 27, 2020 15 min read

Good morning. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in 200,000 dead worldwide, including 50,000 deaths in the U.S. and 165 dead in Washington, D.C., with the number of metropolitan cases continuing to increase. Despite the rising toll, the House and Senate held in-person votes this past week, several members of Congress want to reopen the Capitol, and some members ignored safety measures. We […]

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

Forecast for April 20, 2020

By DanielSchuman April 19, 2020 13 min read

TOP LINE The House inches forward on remote deliberations. Speaker Pelosi belatedly flipped her position and now supports a very limited form of remote voting, although it remains to be seen whether she will support restarting the committees and allowing remote deliberations on the floor — and whether she needs to bring members back to […]

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