While the House remains in recess for the Democrat’s annual policy conference in Baltimore, the Senate convened at 10:00 A.M. and is continuing its work on judicial nominations. The Senate is expected to take up the nominations of Colleen R. Lawless to be United States District Judge for the Central District of Illinois, Gordon P. Gallagher to be United States District Judge for the District of Colorado and Jonathan James Canada Grey to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan.
President Joe Biden will attend the Senate Democrats caucus lunch today following his visit to the House Democrats policy conference in Baltimore last night. The President’s visit comes on the heels of Senate Republicans, helped by two Democratic defectors, voting on Wednesday to block a Labor Department rule allowing retirement plan managers to include environmental, social and corporate governance considerations, ESG, in their investment plans. The Senate resolution, a version of which already passed the House, is expected to draw President Biden’s first veto The Labor Department rule was meant to undo a Trump-era dictum limiting investment managers to consider only purely financial factors in their decisions. Advocates of the rule have used the common ESG defense that concerns about climate change and treatment of workers are legitimate financial issues for investment managers to weigh. They add that the rule is neutral, and managers are free to disregard ESG issues. But Republicans described the rule as “woke” overreach, and were aided by the Democratic senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, both of whom are running tough re-election races in states with sizable fossil-fuel industries.
The Senate will not be in session tomorrow and will return on Monday, March 6th. The House will return on Tuesday, March 7th.
