TOP LINE After a House Administration Subcommittee hearing focused on the personal rather than the institutional aspects of the Office of Congressional Ethics, we take a deeper look at why that office is vital to an ethical Congress. Congressional unions scored an historic win for committee staff and others. This week both chambers are in […]
TOP LINE This week: Congress is back. The committee calendar is looking quiet. The House has a committee work week; the Senate floor will start by addressing some nominations. On tap for the month: a continuing resolution publishing Appropriations until December is likely. On Friday, the White House’s OMB published what it would like to […]
TOP LINE This week, recess continues. Last week saw two big announcements from the White House: (1) the partial student loan forgiveness program, which incidentally could help 2,000 staffers (or more!) on the hill, and (2) making federally-funded research free and publicly available, which will improve the availability of information for policymaking deliberations. You didn’t ask us, but congressional […]
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; […]
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 […]
Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your regular look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Tell your friends to subscribe. THE TOP LINE Welcome back. The Senate is in today; the House is in on Tuesday, with the Courthouse Ethics and Transparency Act on suspension and further appropriations bills possible. We’re curious about House Oversight’s Wednesday hearing into the Future […]
Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your regular look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Tell your friends to subscribe. THE TOP LINE The House and Senate are back this week, as I’m sure you noticed. — Senate. You’ve probably seen all the commentary on Senator Schumer’s letter on the Senate schedule for the next month or two. Of […]
Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your regular look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Tell your friends to subscribe. WE NEED YOUR HELP Many First Branch Forecast readers were unsubscribed from our newsletter for technical reasons that have nothing to do with us. The upshot: hundreds of people lost their subscriptions; many others had our emails go […]
Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your regular look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Subscribe here. THE TOP LINE The upcoming 10 days are going to be crazy, but the tick-tock is adequately covered by other newsletters so you don’t need it from us. Here is this week’s House floor calendar, the Senate floor schedule, the combined committee […]
Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your weekly look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Subscribe here. We hope you had a wonderful July 4th weekend. THE TOP LINE House Appropriations favorably reported six of the twelve spending bills, including a Legislative Branch bill and report that included desperately and long overdue investments in the Legislative Branch, […]
Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your weekly look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Subscribe here. We hope you had a good Juneteenth holiday weekend. The Senate is back on Monday and the House is back on Tuesday. THE TOP LINE Follow the money. The House deemed top line discretionary spending as part of an unrelated bill […]
Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your weekly look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here. TOP LINE STOP EVERYTHING. “100% of my focus is on stopping this new administration,” said Sen. McConnell at a press conference. He added: Democrats want to turn America into a “socialist country” and […]