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DC Download 10.02.2023

After weeks of brinkmanship, Congress passed a stopgap funding bill on Saturday, narrowly avoiding a government shutdown that would have furloughed tens of thousands of federal workers and disrupted popular services and programs. House lawmakers were slated to start a two-week recess today, but are instead staying in Washington, D.C. to consider appropriations bills to fund the legislative branch and the Energy Department. At the same time, some House Republican lawmakers are expected to file a motion to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Table of Contents:

K-12 Education

No matter who you are or where you live, most of us believe every kid deserves a safe, supportive, and nurturing school to learn and grow in.

But today, the same politicians who slashed funding for our schools are trying to dictate what teachers say, which books our children can read, and whether kids can be themselves at school. They are peddling lies to stop kids from learning our shared stories of confronting injustice, and they’re sowing hate to distract us from real problems.

We know our kids deserve an honest education, safe schools, and a caring, supportive environment where every child can thrive. Just like we won better wages, safer workplaces, and civil rights in our past, we need to join together across racial differences to demand leaders who will fund our schools, keep our kids safe, let our kids be themselves, and provide the honest, quality education every child deserves.

Read more at the Progressive Playbook.

Fast Facts:

71 percent of likely voters oppose local school boards banning books in public schools and the majority of Americans, including the majority of parents, support teaching honest history—including about slavery as the cause of the Civil War (70 percent), Jim Crow (56 percent), and the history of racism in the U.S. (57 percent).
Two-thirds of Americans oppose bills that restrict transgender people’s rights and the majority oppose bills that attack trans children, including bans on trans children participating in sports and on gender-affirming medical care.
The Education Trust found that schools serving the largest populations of Black, Latino, or Indigenous students received about 13 percent less funding than those serving the fewest students of color.

House Floor

The House will vote on five suspension bills from the Committee on Oversight & Accountability. Suspension bills require a ⅔ majority to pass. For a list of all suspension bills being considered, click here.

The House will also consider the following bills, subject to a rule:

H.R. 4394 - Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024 (Sponsored by Rep. Fleischmann / Appropriations Committee): The bill would provide $52 billion in discretionary funding for Fiscal Year 2024 to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers civil works projects, the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation, the Department of Energy (DOE), and several independent agencies.

Bill Report (Appropriations Committee)
Bill Summary (Appropriations Committee)

H.R. 4364 - Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2024 (Sponsored by Rep. Amodei / Appropriations Committee): The bill would provide $5.3 billion in discretionary funding for Fiscal Year 2024 for Congress’soperations.

Bill Report (Appropriations Committee)
Bill Summary (Appropriations Committee)

The House may also consider additional legislation.

Senate Floor

H.R. 5692 - Ukraine Security Assistance and Oversight Supplemental Appropriations Act (Sponsored by Rep. Kean / Appropriations Committee): The bill would provide $300 million in supplemental funding to the Department of Defense for assistance to Ukraine and establish the Office of the Special Inspector General for Ukraine Assistance. While the precise timeline for this bill’s consideration is not yet clear, Senate Majority Leader Schumer has added it to the chamber’s calendar, and Senate leaders released a bipartisan statement this weekend indicating plans to vote on Ukraine funding expeditiously.

Nominations

The Senate this week has teed up votes on the following nominees:

James C. O'Brien, of Nebraska, to be Assistant Secretary of State (European and Eurasian Affairs)
Brendan Abell Hurson, of Maryland, to be United States District Judge for the District of Maryland
Susan Kim DeClercq, of Michigan, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan

Senate Committee Highlights

A full list of this week’s Senate committee hearings, including confirmation hearings, can be found here. Notable committee hearings include:

Tuesday Hearings

Back to School with the SHOP SAFE Act: Protecting Our Families from Unsafe Online Counterfeits (Judiciary)

Wednesday Hearings

Security on the Korean Peninsula (Foreign Relations)

CHIPS and Science Implementation and Oversight (Commerce, Science, & Transportation)

VA Accountability and Transparency: A Cornerstone of Quality Care and Benefits for Veterans (Veterans’ Affairs)

Thursday Hearings

The Costs of a Government Shutdown (Budget)

Government Funding

The federal government narrowly avoided a government shutdown over the weekend. Lawmakers on Saturday passed a stopgap funding bill, otherwise known as a continuing resolution (CR), and President Joe Biden signed the legislation just before the midnight deadline that would have forced the government to grind to a halt. The CR keeps government funding levels the same as this past year’s and sets a new deadline to avoid a shutdown on November 17th. The bill also includes $16 billion for disaster relief, extends the expiring authorities for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) through the end of 2023, and will keep key programs, like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), operating for the CR’s duration. However, the bill did not include the additional funds for Ukraine that the president requested. Now, Congress has 46 days to pass all 12 appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 2024 or another stopgap as it faces the possibility of a pre-Thanksgiving shutdown. So far, the House has passed four bills on a partisan basis, while the Senate has not passed a single bill. However, the Senate has moved every spending bill through committee with nearly unanimous support from both parties.

Congress passes spending stopgap, averting a shutdown hours before midnight deadline (NPR)
Government shutdown averted after Senate passes bill with just hours to spare (The Washington Post)

Child Care Cliff

While Congress passed a CR over the weekend that included key provisions like disaster relief and reauthorizing the FAA temporarily, it omitted funding for child care. The American Rescue Plan of 2021 included extra funding to support families and child care providers as they dealt with challenges arising from the pandemic, but this money expired on Saturday night. Without more funding from Congress, as many as three million children are projected to lose access to child care across the country, with 70,000 child care programs likely to close. This comes as the U.S. Census recently found that the child poverty rate more than doubled from 5.2 percent in 2021 to 12.4 percent in 2022. Some lawmakers have attempted to avoid this funding cliff. Over the summer, Representatives Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR-01) and Sara Jacobs (D-CA-51), along with Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA), Tina Smith (D-MN), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), sent a letter to President Joe Biden calling on him to support efforts to provide the funding to avoid the child care closures. Shortly after, lawmakers introduced the Child Care Stabilization Act, which would extend federal child care stabilization funding and ensure that child care providers stay open. The bill has yet to be considered by either chamber.

Child Care Stabilization Act one-pager (Senator Murray)
What Is the Child Care Funding Cliff? (Congressional Research Service)
Child Care Cliff: 3.2 Million Children Likely to Lose Spots with End of Federal Funds (The Century Foundation)
America Pulled Children Out of Poverty. Now It’s Set to Reverse Course With a Vengeance. (The New York Times)

Motion to Vacate

Over the weekend, Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL-01) announced plans to file a Motion to Vacate the Chair, which would force a vote to oust the Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. The announcement came after the Speaker unexpectedly introduced the CR that would ultimately prevent a much-anticipated government shutdown. Rep. Gaetz and other ultra-conservative House lawmakers have demanded the House slash spending, gut the Justice Department, impose draconian border policies, and more—despite opposition to these changes in the Senate, White House, and even among some fellow Republicans. In order to oust Speaker McCarthy, Rep. Gaetz would have to file a privileged resolution to vacate the speakership, kicking off a two-day waiting period in which members could file procedural motions to table or delay a vote. However, if these procedural tactics fail, the full House would vote on the privileged resolution to oust the speaker. If his ouster succeeds, the process of electing a new speaker would then start all over, with McCarthy free to run again. If all House Democrats vote for the ouster, Speaker McCarthy can only afford to lose four Republican votes.

California Senate Nomination

Last week, the longest-serving woman in the Senate’s history, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), passed away. Her passing leaves an open seat on the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, which is responsible for advancing the president's judicial nominees. The late senator's death means the committee is now split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, and judicial nominees would need at least one Republican vote to advance to the full Senate chamber. While some lawmakers worried that Republicans would block Democrats from filling the open committee slot to stall judicial nominees, Republicans have signaled they will allow a new Democrat to sit on Judiciary. Over the weekend, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced his intent to appoint Laphonza Butler, the president of EMILY’s List, to fill the late senator’s seat. However, it is unclear whether she will also replace her on the Senate’s Judiciary Committee. Once sworn in, Butler will become the first lesbian Black woman to join Congress and the sole Black female senator. She is expected to be sworn in tomorrow.