While the Election Day dust is still settling, it is now certain that Democrats will control the House in the 116th Congress. At this point, it is also clear the House of Representatives will be younger, more female, and more racially diverse. We were up most of the night, not only watching the returns come in, but also thinking about how race outcomes will impact policy priorities in a Democratically controlled House, as this is a significant change from this Congress.
At Plurus Strategies, we are not only policy experts, but also big political junkies. Our idea of the August recess, even when the Senate is in for all but one week, is finding time to take a look at how election outcomes may impact House and Senate committee leadership and membership in the next Congress. Click through for our analysis of potential changes in the House and Senate.
There are a handful of potential “trip wires” that could derail the appropriations process between now and the end of the fiscal year. It remains to be seen what happens when Congress returns from their recess, and how much governing Congressional Republicans are willing to do to avoid a government shut down just before the midterm elections.
As Congress returned from the Fourth of July holiday this week, the House and Senate will dedicate much of their time between now and the brief August recess to passing legislation to continue funding the federal government. While Congress may ultimately turn to a continuing resolution that punts an omnibus appropriations bill to the lame duck session or into next year, we anticipate that both chambers will try to move as many appropriations measures via minibus packages before fiscal year 2018 appropriations expire on September 30.
Continuing its regulatory reform efforts, the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs released yesterday the Trump Administration’s semi-annual Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, Spring 2018.
