THE TOP LINE

House Dem leadership elections are this week. More below.

The Government may partially shut down on December 7 when the CR runs out of gas.

The House launched the Office of Employee Advocacy (OOEA) according to a Nov. 5 CAO Dear Colleague. House staffers can learn more by following this internal House link. The OOEA provides legal representation to House employees in civil matters covered by the CAA. There’s no public website.

Select committees. The House likely will have a climate change select committee and a select committee to improve the operations of Congress. The former is a request from Rep.-elect Ocasio-Cortez, and the latter is from several entities, including Demand Progress and the Congressional Reformers Caucus. Continue reading “Forecast for November 26, 2018. On Deck: House Democratic Leadership Elections and Potential Partial Shutdown.” →

THE TOP LINE

House Dems scheduled leadership elections for next week, and everyone else elected their leadership last week. Details on who was elected and what’s going on with Dems elections are below.

A draft House rules summary was unveiled last week (WaPo published it), with potentially major changes in the lower chamber. House rules rarely change in significant ways. We’ve got a roundup below.

House progressives and Rep. Pelosi reached apparent agreement on support for Pelosi as Speaker in return for significant changes in House operations. These include: (1) progressives getting proportional representation on the “A” committees (Appropriations, Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, Financial Services, and Intelligence); (2) more leadership spots; (3) adding a budget and staff to the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee. There’s also changes to the House rules in the mix. Still unclear is who gets to pick the progressives to serve on these committees.

House Republicans thwarted a vote on a resolution that would have ended US military support to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen; leadership used an unrelated resolution to de-privilege the Yemen resolution. If this sounds complicated, that’s the point, and it’s another example of House leadership “protecting” members from a hard vote. Casey Burgat explains how “special rules” underscore the power of leadership. Continue reading “Forecast for November 19, 2018. Challenges to House Leadership; Changes to House Rules; and How New Members Will Shape Up.” →

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What did last week’s election change? The House will have at least 100 new faces and the average age dropped by eight years. Three Democrats lost their seats in the Senate, but it appears that, at most, they will lose one seat overall, with the parties in that chamber becoming more ideologically homogeneous.

Demographically speaking, 101 women were elected to the House (23%) and 12 to the Senate, of whom 104 are Democrats. There’s a slight increase in the number of African Americans (12.4%), Latinos (11.3%), and Asian-Americans (3.0%) in the House. BuzzFeed reported on some of the “firsts.” At least seven new members have STEM backgrounds. House committee leadership will change dramatically.

Rules and leadership decisions made in the next few weeks will shape the next two years. The House Republican leadership election is this Wednesday, and FreedomWorks has the best roundup of the nominees and proposed rules changes. Here’s the draft conference rules, courtesy Politico. On leadership: for Minority Leader, it’s McCarthy vs Jordan; Scalise is unopposed for Whip; Cheney is running for Conference Chair; Walker vs Mullin for Vice Chair; Schweikert vs Palmer for Policy Committee Chair. It’s not leadership, but watch McClintock vs Johnson for the Republican Study Committee. Continue reading “Forecast for November 13, 2018. What Did Last Week’s Election Change?” →

THE TOP LINE

It’d be great if Tuesday were a federal holiday. Just saying. While we’re at it, how about ending daylight savings time? Happy Monday from the only congressional newsletter not talking about polling. Continue reading “Forecast for November 5, 2018. Congressional Tech Gets an Upgrade.” →