As we return from Memorial Day Recess, the House will be in a committee work week this week, and will reconvene for votes next Monday, June 14th at 6:30 p.m. The Senate will convene at 3:00 p.m. today and will resume consideration of the nomination of Julien Xavier Neals to be US District Judge for the District of New Jersey. The vote on the confirmation of Neals will be President Joe Biden’s first judicial appointment. The Senate will also consider Regina Rodriguez to be a federal district court judge in Colorado this week. Both nominees were part of President Biden’s initial group of 10 judicial nominations announced in March. Xavier Neals and Rodriguez were nominated to federal judgeships by President Barack Obama and both nominations were returned when the 114th Congress adjourned in January 2017 without taking action on them.
As the Senate reconvenes today for the June work period, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) warned his caucus in a letter that June will “test our resolve” as senators return to consider infrastructure, voting rights and other stalled-out priorities at a crucial moment in this Congress. The Senate will have to tackle a long list: the US Innovation and Competition Act, paycheck fairness, S1-For the People Act of 2021, infrastructure and begin work on judicial nominations.
All eyes will be on infrastructure this week after President Biden rejected a new Republican infrastructure counteroffer on Friday, but will continue talks with Republicans this week as the White House considers whether it should abandon hopes for a bipartisan deal. During a conversation with the president Friday, Senator Shelley Moore Capito, (R-West Virginia), proposed adding about $50 billion in spending to the GOP’s framework. Republicans last put forward a $928 billion plan and Biden most recently proposed a $1.7 trillion package. Biden signaled the “current offer did not meet his objectives to grow the economy, tackle the climate crisis, and create new jobs.” Although he shot down the latest proposal, Biden will meet with Capito again today and plans to engage with senators from both parties about a “more substantial package.” As the talks continue, Democrats have also moved ahead with a surface transportation bill in the House and the legislation could serve as the means to approve major pieces of Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure package through a series of must-pass spending bills.
Senator Joe Manchin III (D-West Virginia) said on Sunday in no uncertain terms that he will not vote for the Democrats’ far-reaching bill, For the People Act, to combat voter suppression and restore ethical controls on the presidency. In an opinion piece in a West Virginia paper, Mr. Manchin, also reiterated his staunch opposition to ending the Senate’s legislative filibuster, which would seem to doom many of President Biden’s most ambitious legislative goals. The voting rights bill would roll back dozens of laws being passed by Republican state legislatures to limit early and mail-in voting and empower partisan poll watchers and voting oversight. The legislation would also force major-party candidates for president and vice president to release 10 years’ worth of personal and business tax returns and end the president’s and vice president’s exemption from executive branch conflict-of-interest rules, which allowed former President Donald J. Trump to maintain businesses that profited off his presidency.
President Biden is scheduled today to host NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House for a meeting ahead of a June 14th summit of the 30-member military alliance in Brussels. The President is expected to leave Wednesday on the trip, and will also meet with Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the G7 in Cornwall and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva.
Adam S. Olsen, Washington, D.C.
