COMPASS: Senate sidesteps Mayorkas impeachment

April 9, 2024

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. Both the House and Senate return to DC this week after a two week recess – accompanied by a full solar eclipse on Monday. A portent? No one knows. But if you feel like we’re all hurtling directly into the sun, you’re not alone. On deck this week: the impeachment […]

COMPASS: Speaker Johnson leans into Ukraine aid

April 2, 2024

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House and Senate are still in recess, but it’s not all fun and games. House Speaker Mike Johnson is signaling his intentions to move a Kyiv-sized problem to the House floor next week. In a recent Fox News interview, Johnson laid out a potential path for the House to […]

COMPASS: Thousands and thousands of earmarks

March 27, 2024

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. On Friday, the House and Senate left town for a two week recess – but not without a little (okay, a lot) of drama. Both chambers muscled through a $1.2 trillion “minibus” appropriations bill to fund the rest of Fiscal Year 2024, which ends at the end of September. House […]

COMPASS: Congress prepares to fund Biden’s border policies

March 19, 2024

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill.  The House and Senate are both in session this week, staring down yet another government funding deadline on Friday. On the table is another “minibus” – a set of 6 appropriations bills that fund roughly three-quarters of federal discretionary spending and cover everything from the Department of Health and Human […]

COMPASS: The State of America’s Union

March 12, 2024

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. It’s still early enough in the week that I’d like whatever cocktail of uppers Joe Biden was on during last week’s State of the Union.  President Biden’s speech carved new ground for this White House. The Spectator’s Ben Domenech described the speech this way: It is without question the most […]

COMPASS: McConnell’s Last Stand

March 5, 2024

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill.  The House and Senate are both in session. Over the weekend, text was released of the six bill “minibus” designed to finalize passage of the Fiscal Year 2024 spending bills (FY24 ends in September, so the Congress is predictably already behind in passing any semblance of regular order appropriations bills […]

COMPASS: The (lack of) funding fight

February 27, 2024

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill.  The Senate is back in session, beginning this evening. The House returns on Wednesday. Both chambers are set for a course collision with two government funding deadlines that hit on March 1 and March 8. How Congress intends to proceed here is a bit unclear. The House Speaker Mike Johnson […]

COMPASS: Border Wars And Woes

February 20, 2024

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill.  The House and Senate are still out of session; both chambers return next week to deal with the first of two government funding deadlines on March 1 and March 8.  In the meantime, both chambers continue to wrestle with the wide-open southern border. In the House, a group of moderate […]

COMPASS: Ukraine aid moves through the Senate

February 14, 2024

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. Early Tuesday morning the Senate passed its $95.3 billion foreign aid bill, which sends money to Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel, and to U.S. conflicts in the Red Sea. Despite early commitments by Senate Republicans to only fund Ukraine’s border after we had secured our own, the bill passed without any border […]

COMPASS: Border Deal Crumbles

February 6, 2024

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. I’m happy to be back in the saddle at CPI for what – by Washington standards, anyway – has already been a blistering week. The fate of the Senate’s “border deal” can be summed up in two quotes from Mitch McConnell, each issued yesterday. The first, from Morning Mitch McConnell:  […]

COMPASS: Conservative Speaker Elected

October 30, 2023

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. Last week, the House of Representatives elected conservative Mike Johnson from Louisiana as Speaker. Through a number of ballots and weeks, Mike Johnson emerged as the one who would unite and move the House forward with its business. Center for Renewing American President, Russ Vought, wrote in a tweet, “I […]

COMPASS: Congress Returns

September 15, 2023

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. Both the House and the Senate returned to session this week, staring down three weeks until the September 30 funding deadline. Back on August 21, the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) issued an official position, “No Security, No Funding.” As reported by HFC members, this was intended to guide the discussion […]

COMPASS: Red Lines for Spending Debate

August 23, 2023

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House and Senate are both out for their August recess. The House is scheduled to return on September 12, with the Senate scheduled to return September 5. The August recess is more than halfway through and the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) has come out with an official position on […]

COMPASS: August Recess, but September Looms

August 11, 2023

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House and Senate are both out for their August recess. The House is scheduled to return on September 12, with the Senate scheduled to return September 5. With 9 currently scheduled weeks of session in the House and 12 currently scheduled weeks of session in the Senate, Congress will […]

COMPASS: Abortion at the Veterans Administration

July 20, 2023

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House and Senate are in session this week. The House, having processed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), is moving towards appropriations. The Senate will take up their version of the NDAA this week and likely finish next week. The House Rules Committee, earlier this week, posted the Military […]

COMPASS: The NDAA Arrives

July 13, 2023

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House and Senate are in session this week after a two week Fourth of July recess. The House is processing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the Senate is working through nominations. The House and Senate are scheduled to be in through the end of July. The House […]

COMPASS: Censure and Impeachment

June 23, 2023

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House and Senate are in session this week and will both depart for a two-week recess over Independence Day. The House and Senate will both come back into session the week of July 10. Freshman Representative Anna Paulina Luna stepped into the legislative and procedural spotlight this week by […]

COMPASS: Conservative Victories In Sight, Road Blocks Visible

June 16, 2023

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House and Senate were both back in session this week and will be through June 23, when both chambers will depart for the July 4, two week recess. Both bodies will then come back the week of July 10 for what will certainly be a busy month. This week, […]

COMPASS: Congress Passes Debt Deal, Conservatives Strike Back

June 7, 2023

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House and Senate are both back in session and will be through until June 23, when both chambers will depart for the July 4, two week recess. Both bodies will then come back the week of July 10 for what will certainly be a crazy month. Last week the […]

COMPASS: Debt Deal Advanced in the House

June 1, 2023

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House is back in session this week and the Senate will be in session for the next 4 weeks. As House members departed Washington D.C. on May 25th for the Memorial Day recess, they knew that there was potential for them to return over the weekend or during the […]

COMPASS: Rep. Roy Debt Limit Memo and Forced EVs

May 25, 2023

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House is in session this week and then will recess for the next week. The Senate is out of session this week, but will return next week and remain in session for four weeks straight. The House is in serious debt-limit negotiations with the White House and Congressman Chip […]

COMPASS: Border Timeline

May 17, 2023

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House is in session for the next two weeks and the Senate is in session for this week before they are out for a week of recess. This week is Police Week in the House of Representatives, so the House will take up a number of law enforcement aligned […]

COMPASS: Lee Letter

May 9, 2023

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House is in session for the next three weeks and the Senate is in session for the next two weeks. The House will take up H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act of 2023 this week, one of the majorities major promises for this Congress. H.R. 2 is a […]

COMPASS: This is Not a Debate About Ethics…

May 2, 2023

Good morning from Capitol Hill. The House is out of session for a week and the Senate is in session for the next three weeks. Last week, the House passed their debt ceiling bill by a slim 217-215 margin. Many across the country, and particularly inside the D.C. bubble, did not think even drafting legislative […]