The House comes off a one-week recess period to resume the Department of Defense appropriations bill when members reconvene on Wednesday, July 6.
The House may also pass the Energy and Water appropriations bill before the week ends. Once the House passes the two appropriations bills, that will bring the number to five completed appropriations bills. This means the House is almost halfway through passing all 12 appropriations bills.
Once all 12 appropriations bills are passed through both Houses of Congress, together, they would fund the entire federal government. Behind the scenes, the House GOP leadership is also preparing to consider a constitutional amendment to require the federal government to balance the budget. The Congress last considered this constitutional amendment in 1995, when the House passed the amendment by the constitutionally required two-thirds, but it failed by one vote in the Senate.
In the eyes of the fiscal conservative members of Congress, as well as tea party members of Congress, considering the balanced budget amendment is the first step needed before they will even consider voting to increase our public debt. The secretary of Treasury has repeatedly insisted that Congress must increase the debt owed by Aug. 2 in order for our government to be able to pay all of our bills. The House leadership is working on the date in July to schedule the debate and vote on the constitutional amendment.
The Senate canceled the scheduled week-long Independence holiday congressional recess last Thursday and will be reconvening Tuesday, July 5. They will begin the debate on the McCain-Kerry resolution, Senate Joint Resolution 20 (SJ Res. 20), regardingmilitary action in Libya. A 60-vote procedural motion will occur at 5pm on Tuesday. The Senate could be debating the authority of limited use of our armed forces in Libya most of the week. The resolution declares that passage of the document constitutes the statutory authorization required under the War Powers Resolution for the United States to continue our presence in Libya.
Also this week, the Senate Democrats are hoping that the president will visit their caucus luncheon to further discuss the political strategy that will be used by the Democrats as they negotiate with congressional Republicans on our public debt limit.
Iflast weeks press conference activity is any indication, this writer expects multiple Democratic press conferences to be aired this week. Look for these "pressers" by the Democrats in Congress, and the president to take part in an effort to formulate their debt negotiations' political message to the American people.
Stay tuned to see how the debt negotiations are progressing as well as the appropriations process in the House of Representatives as the Senate debates the presidents authority under the War Powers Resolution.
Elizabeth B. Letchworth is a retired, elected United States Senate secretary for the majority and minority. Currently she is a senior legislative adviser for Covington & Burling, LLC and is the founder of Gradegov.com.
