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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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]