Congress spent the week preparing for its more-than-month-long recess by finally passing the extension of the federal unemployment benefits. This $34 billion bill was passed in the Senate on Tuesday, just minutes after the newest senator from West Virginia was sworn in as the 100th United States senator for the 111th Congress.
The vote to break the filibuster and pass the bill was successful because of the newest senator and the help of the two GOP senators from Maine, Sens. Collins and Snowe. GOP efforts to use unspent stimulus funds to pay the $34 billion tab associated with the bill failed, as well as a handful of other ideas offered by the GOP.
One of these ideas was an effort by Sen. DeMint, R-South Carolina, to prohibit any funds given to the Department of Justice to be used in connection with the ongoing lawsuit by the Obama administration against the state of Arizona. The administration launched its lawsuit as a result of the Arizona Senate Bill 1070, which deals with enforcement of immigration laws. This effort to block funding failed by a vote of 43 to 55. The House quickly passed the Senate bill and the President signed the federal unemployment benefits bill Friday morning.
Another piece of unfinished business that made some progress this week in Congress was the much overdue Iraq and Afghanistan war supplemental appropriations bill. The funding bill began its journey through Congress in late February with the president making the $33 billion request. In May, the Senate added more spending, making the total cost around $60 billion. The House added more pork, which was the proverbial straw that broke the camel back -- as far as the Senate was concerned.
Late Thursday night, the Senate conducted a vote to see if they could break the GOP filibuster objecting to the House spending. The Senate failed to overcome the GOP objections, so the Democratic leadership stripped all of the $20 billion in extra House spending and sent that bill back to the House for their consideration. Defense Secretary Gates has been warning Congress all week that they need to pass this bill before they leave for their upcoming August recess. This bill will be considered next week in the House.
While the House was waiting for Senate action on unemployment and the war supplemental, they passed HR 1469, the Child Improvement Protection Act. This bill allows FBI searches to be used as background checks for organizations that serve youths. Presently only about one third of the states have current access of FBI searches. The House also passed the U.S. Manufacturing Enhancement Act by a vote of 378-43. This bill includes hundreds of tariff suspensions and reductions so that American manufacturers will find it easier to obtain the materials they need to produce goods, grow their businesses, and create jobs. This tariff relief hopes to add billions of dollars to the in the form of thousands of manufacturing jobs.
Next week will be dominated by more last minute clean-up of bills that have languished in Congress and court debate, of sorts. The House hopes to begin their August recess by Friday, July 30. The Senate plans on being in session an extra week to conduct a full debate and a confirmation vote of Elena Kagan as the newest Supreme court Justice.
Speaking of court, the former Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes all of our tax laws, was charged with multiple ethics violations by the House ethics committee late this past week. Rep. Rangel was quoted as saying: I look forward to airing this thing...I am pleased that, at long last, sunshine will pierce the cloud of serious allegation that have been raised against me in the media.
Unfortunately for Rep. Rangel, the allegations were not raised by the media, but rather by his fellow colleagues in the House of Representatives. The first organizational meeting of the House Committee on Standards and Official Conduct will be Thursday, July 29 at 1 p.m. Stay tuned to see how all of this plays before Congress leaves for the month of August.
Elizabeth B. Letchworth is a former four-times-elected United States Senate Secretary for the Majority and Minority (retired). Currently she is the owner of GradeGov.com.
