The House meets at noon for legislative business and will take up a minibus of seven fiscal year 2022 appropriations bills: Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Agriculture, Rural Development, Energy and Water Development, Financial Services and General Government, Interior, Environment, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development. The House will also consider 17 bills under suspension of the Rules.
The Senate convened at 10:30 a.m. and resumed consideration of the nomination of Todd Kim to be an Assistant Attorney General.
More than six months since the deadly siege of the Capitol incited by former President Donald J. Trump, the January 6th Select Committee’s first meeting kicked off this morning with opening statements from Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi) and Republican member Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming). The select committee members, assembled for their first public appearance since Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) added Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois) to the dais, are set to question officers from the Metropolitan Police Department and the Capitol Police who personally fended off violent rioters on the hunt for members of Congress and Speaker Pelosi. Senior Democrats are looking to give Cheney a more prominent leadership post on the panel, including possibly making her vice chair, as her performance behind the scenes leaves them impressed with her focus and drive. Democrats are also finalizing plans to make former GOP Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Virginia) a senior adviser to the two Republicans on the panel at Cheney’s request. The hearing will be just the beginning. In the weeks ahead, the panel of seven Democrats and two Republicans, all appointed by Speaker Pelosi, will contend with how they can make the biggest impact, highlight the lies Republican leadership continues to propagate, how to choose which documents to seek and, perhaps most importantly, to decide whether they will try to force former President Trump, as well as some of their Republican colleagues who spoke to him that day to testify.
As lawmakers returned to Washington on Monday, with the hope of completing the text of the bipartisan infrastructure package their posture was similar to that of previous weeks. Although they appeared to be tantalizingly close, negotiators had yet to finalize a deal but patience from the highest levels of the Democratic Party was wearing thin. “We have reached a critical moment. The bipartisan group of senators has had nearly five weeks of negotiation,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said Monday. Saying that the Senate could stay in session into the weekend, cutting into its upcoming summer break to get the proposal done, Schumer added, “It’s time for everyone to get to yes and produce an outcome for the American people.” The last-minute complications come in part because powerful Senate chairmen are now offering input on a package whose policies encompass multiple committees. Republicans also said Senate Democrats and administration officials are reopening negotiations on matters that the GOP believed had been settled, although their Democratic counterparts dispute that. Besides funding for public transit, there are differences over money for broadband, highways and bridges; using unspent COVID-19 relief funds to help pay for the bipartisan deal; and Republicans wanting to waive federally mandated wage requirements for federally funded projects. Democrats are concerned the bipartisan deal won’t fully fund a water bill previously passed by the Senate or provide an additional $15 billion for treating water contamination caused by lead pipes and accused Republicans of proposing something completely unworkable. Schumer still aims to complete work on the infrastructure proposal before lawmakers depart for their planned August recess on the 6th. The majority leader also intends to advance a second, roughly $3.5 trillion package that encompasses the elements of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda that are left out of the bipartisan deal, and would likely attract zero Republican support.
Adam S. Olsen, Washington, D.C.
