Compass

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House and Senate are both in session this week, before they both depart for the two-week Easter recess. This week, the House will take up H.R. 1, the Lower Energy Cost Act. H.R. 1 is a compilation of energy bills, aimed at reducing the cost of energy in the […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House comes back for an abbreviated week after the Republican conference retreat and the Senate will be in session Tuesday through Friday this week. When the House returns this week, it will turn its attention to H.R. 5, the Parents Bill of Rights Act. The Senate will debate and […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House is out of session and Senate will work 3 of the 5 days this week. In case you missed it, the Senate passed by a vote of 81-14, a Joint Resolution aimed at overturning the D.C. Council’s desire to weaken the D.C. criminal code. The House of Representatives […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House and Senate are both back in session this week. The Senate will continue to vote on and process nominations. House committees will begin marking up bills in earnest this week, with lots of committee action across the board. Undoubtedly there will be some drama on the House floor, […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House and Senate are both out of session and will return to Washington next week. The most deliberative legislative body in the world, the United States Senate, seems content to just process nominations with little else scheduled. The House of Representatives will be in session four out of the […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill, As the Republican House majority settles into committee assignments, the investigations into the Biden administration are beginning in earnest. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) announced today that he will have the first hearing on Biden family “influence peddling” next week. House Judiciary led by Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill, where for the first time in 100 years, a Speaker of the House was not elected on the first vote. Or the second vote. This is because 19 conservatives voted for someone other than Rep. Kevin McCarthy (CA). And then on a third vote, the opposition increased to 20 conservatives […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill.  Before departing for the holiday last week, Congress passed a $1.7 trillion omnibus. Given the speed at which it was released and then passed, it’s safe to assume that members hardly knew what was in the more than 4,000 page bill. So just like Nancy Pelosi said back in 2010, […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill.  It’s officially Christmas time and we’re well into Hanukkah, but here in DC, it’s Washington at its absolute worst. The holiday deadline is a cynical excuse to jam through thousands of pages of legislation covering not only the nation’s annual spending, but billions more for Ukraine, passage of actual bills […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill.  It’s spending season in Washington and things are about to get real. Democrat and Republican appropriators are still desperately trying to salvage a trillion-dollar omnibus spending bill. Republicans reportedly want higher defense spending, while Democrats want parity between defense and nondefense spending. There are three ways out of this:  1) […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House and Senate are both in session, and it’s a big week in Washington. The Georgia Senate runoff is tomorrow, and, depending on the outcome, Democrats will either have a 50-49 seat majority, or the Senate will remain in a 50-50 tie. The continuing resolution, which is propping up […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House and Senate return to session this week. Last week, I wrote about the battle over religious liberty brewing in the Senate on the Respect for Marriage Act, which claims to “codify same sex marriage” (it doesn’t – nothing in the bill changes the status of, or benefits afforded […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. It’s Thanksgiving week, so Congress is out of session. Former president Donald Trump last week officially declared he will seek re-election to the presidency in 2024. And by week’s end, his Twitter account was officially reinstated after over 15 million people voted approvingly in a Twitter poll put out by […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. Congress is back in session and the lame duck session starts now. On deck is a government funding deadline on December 16th, the defense authorization bill, more aid for Ukraine, and possibly even a same sex marriage bill. But before we even get to that point, the tight majorities in […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. It’s T-1 day until Election Day. America has been undergoing a tectonic political realignment for at least the last two decades, one I would argue was reflected in the election of Donald Trump in 2016. One thing his election reflected was how broadly the demographic parameters of each party are […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House and Senate are still out of session. The midterm elections are in 8 days. And Happy Halloween! I was trying to come up with a fun pun or a cute turn of phrase but then I realized that a town full of politicians collaborating with America’s biggest corporations […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House and Senate are still out of session. Pennsylvania Senate candidates Mehmet Oz and John Fetterman debate for the one and only time tomorrow at 8pm. If you missed it last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee voted unanimously to add the COVID vaccine and […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The House and Senate are still out of session. If you miss the Capitol Hill Sturm und Drang, you can live vicariously through the midterm debates going on around the country. Rep. Tim Ryan and JD Vance face off in a debate for the open Ohio Senate seat tonight at […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The Senate returns this week to debate the National Defense Authorization Act, but won’t return to vote until November 14th. The House is still out. Yet the regime presses forward. Apparently in response to the Dobbs ruling overturning Roe v Wade in June, the Department of Justice is now moving […]

The House and Senate are officially out of town for the next six weeks until they return for a lame duck session in mid- November. And that lame duck will be a busy one. Before they left, both chambers passed a Continuing Resolution to December 16, setting up another government funding deadline. (You can see […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. Shona tova to all those observing Rosh Hashanah. The House and Senate are both in session this week and are up against a federal funding deadline on September 30. The forthcoming Continuing Resolution is rumored to fund the government until December 16th. I say “rumored” because, of course, no one […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. The Compass is a day late this week as I have been out in Miami at the Conference for National Conservatism. Videos from the conference, including speeches from Gov. Ron DeSantis, Peter Thiel, Sen. Rick Scott, Sen. Marco Rubio, and Sen. Josh Hawley, are being posted here. My remarks are […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. They’re baaaaack. Well, almost. The Senate returns to Washington this week, while the House will be back next week. But looming over Congress’s return is the September 30th government funding deadline and all the drama that entails. Reports indicate Democrats are considering a continuing resolution (a CR, which is a […]

Good afternoon from Capitol Hill. Both the House and Senate are still out of session, which means the city is quiet as we all soak up the waning days of summer. D.C. is sleepy, but the news cycle is not. Mark Zuckerberg made news last week, confirming that Facebook suppressed circulation of the New York […]