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First Branch Forecast for April 4, 2022: 4/04 Resolution Not Found

By DanielSchuman April 4, 2022 19 min read

TOP LINE On the calendar. The Senate and House are in today. The week before recess is often a whirlwind of activity and this week is no exception. In the committees, we have four — four! — House Leg branch appropriations hearings, a ModCom hearing on Continuity of Congress, a House Admin STOCK Act hearing, and … the Congressional Hackathon […]

Key Policy Provisions Included in the FY 2022 Legislative Branch Bill and Joint Explanatory Statement

By DanielSchuman April 3, 2022 27 min read

President Biden signed the FY 2022 appropriations omnibus bill into law on March 15th, 2022. Included in the omnibus package was the FY 2022 Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill, which contains dozens of policy provisions that aim to strengthen congressional capacity, oversight, technology, and modernization. This legislation signifies a monumental investment in restoring the Legislative branch. […]

FY 2023 Leg Branch Approps Requests

By DanielSchuman April 2, 2022 1 min read

We were curious about how the requests for the Legislative Branch for FY 2023 compared to prior years. So we took each line item for the requests published in the president’s budget for FY 2023 and compared it against the line items for FY 2022 and FY 2021. The following spreadsheet, which is also available […]

First Branch Forecast for March 28, 2022: Statler and Waldorf

By DanielSchuman March 28, 2022 10 min read

TOP LINE This week. The Senate is in today; the House is in tomorrow. We’ll be watching Tuesday’s much-anticipated Senate Judiciary Cmte FOIA hearing, which we hope covers strengthening the law and asking whether AG Garland’s long overdue FOIA memorandum goes far enough? (No.) The Capitol Police’s budget will be the focus of a first-of-the-season House Leg Branch Approps hearing on Wednesday; […]

First Branch Forecast for March 21, 2022: Not the Supremes

By DanielSchuman March 21, 2022 18 min read

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 Senate is in; the House is out. This week, much attention will focus on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on SCOTUS nominee Hon. Ketanji Brown Jackson. Last week was packed with Sunshine […]

New Office of Legal Counsel Transparency Bill Would End Secret Law by OLC Opinion

By DanielSchuman March 17, 2022 3 min read

Senator Duckworth, along with Senator Leahy, just introduced the Demanding Oversight and Justification Over Legal Conclusions Transparency Act (DOJ OLC Transparency Act), a bill to require the Department of Justice to publicly disclose all Office of Legal Counsel opinions, with appropriate exceptions for classified material. Demand Progress has long advocated for such transparency, and applauds […]

First Branch Forecast for March 14, 2022: The Ides of Sunshine

By DanielSchuman March 14, 2022 19 min read

Welcome‌ ‌to‌ ‌the‌ ‌First‌ ‌Branch‌ ‌Forecast,‌ ‌your‌ ‌regular‌ ‌look‌ ‌into‌ ‌the‌ ‌Legislative‌ ‌branch‌ ‌and‌ government ‌transparency.‌ ‌Tell ‌your‌ ‌friends‌ ‌to‌ subscribe. TOP LINE Morning, sunshine: this week is Sunshine week, an annual celebration of open government and freedom of information The Senate is in today; the House is in tomorrow. The final FY 2022 appropriations omnibus is about to become law, […]

Key Funding Items Included in the FY 2022 Legislative Branch Bill

By DanielSchuman March 12, 2022 6 min read

The FY 2022 appropriations omnibus was passed by both houses of Congress this past week and President Biden is expected to shortly sign the measure into law. The FY 2022 Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill was rolled into the package, and it is packed with good government reforms and significant investments in Congress’s capacity to legislate, […]

What We Know About How House Unionization Might Work

By DanielSchuman March 8, 2022 8 min read

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 […]

First Branch Forecast for March 7, 2022

By DanielSchuman March 7, 2022 17 min read

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 […]

First Branch Forecast for February 28, 2022

By DanielSchuman February 28, 2022 6 min read

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 […]