House Pushes “Pause” on Syria Refugees

Posted on November 19, 2015

The House voted overwhelmingly Thursday to slap stringent — and difficult to implement — new screening procedures on refugees from Syria seeking resettlement, seizing on the fear stemming from the Paris attacks.

The bill passed by a vote of 289 to 137 with nearly 50 Democrats in support even after Administration officials implored congressional Democrats to vote down the bill. The measure would require that the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence confirm that each applicant from Syria and Iraq poses no threat. The White House has declared the requirements “untenable.”

The White House has threatened to veto the measure should it pass the Senate and be sent to the President for signature.

ESEA/NCLB Conference Finished, Vote in House Expected

Posted on November 19, 2015

House and Senate conferees finished their work on an agreement to rewrite the No Child Left Behind law today. Members are hopeful that the conference package can clear both chambers by the end of the year. Both parties have been critical of the last reauthorization law (which renamed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to No Child Left Behind), which expired in 2007, for being overly prescriptive and limiting state and local agencies from prioritizing their needs. The Education Department has issued waivers from the law to many states, but also required states to adopt certain policies and standards pushed by the Obama administration. States losing their waivers, such as Washington State, has been a hot political issue.

Final legislative text is expected in the coming days, in order to give all members of Congress time to read the negotiated measure over the Thanksgiving break.

House Education and the Workforce Chairman John Kline (R-MN) who also led the conference committee, said he expects the House to vote on the package on Dec. 2 or Dec. 3. The Senate is expected to take up the measure after the House acts.

Ed Takes Aim at Accreditors

Posted on November 6, 2015

Today, Dept. of Education officials announced a series of actions centering on transparency in an effort to force accreditors to focus more on student outcomes and hold failing colleges accountable. For the most part, the accrediting agencies will not be required to change their practices. Instead, ED hopes to drive change by publishing and disseminating a wealth of information about accreditors and the colleges they oversee on a revamped department web page. One definite change accrediting agencies will have to make: submitting decision letters – which the department will then publish online – when they put institutions on probation.

Senate Passes Budget Around 3 am

Posted on October 30, 2015

The Senate cleared a bipartisan budget and debt limit accord early Friday morning which would send the legislation to the President’s desk. Roughly 72 hours after it was unveiled and buying roughly two years of relative budgetary stability after months of partisan sniping on spending, the Senate passed HR1314 shortly after 3 am. The House passed the measure Wednesday evening.

Just after 3 am, the upper chamber passed the deal by a vote of 64-35, roughly 90 minutes after voting to cut off debate on the legislation. Eighteen Republicans voted in favor of final passage, including Senate GOP Leadership, while 35 Republicans voted against the measure. Forty-four Democrats and two independent senators who conference with Democrats backed the package. See the vote total here.

The budget deal would raise discretionary spending caps for defense and nondefense accounts by $80 billion above the sequester level for fiscal 2016 and fiscal 2017 and suspend the debt limit until March 15, 2017. The increased discretionary spending is offset with cuts to various entitlement programs and revenue raisers.

The President announced his support earlier this week.

House Goes First on Budget Deal

Posted on October 27, 2015

At midnight last night, the Bipartisan Budget Agreement of 2015 was introduced in the House, and the House Rules Committee is expected to consider the measure tomorrow paving the way for the full House to consider the legislation Wednesday. Passage is expected Wednesday and the measure will move to the Senate Wednesday night. The Senate is expected to consider and pass the measure by the end of the week.

The timing will give Boeher plenty of time to pass something before he retires and the elections for Paul Ryan as Speaker are held Thursday as well as before the national debt limit expires on November 3rd.

After the measure passes, the House and Senate Appropriations committees will begin working with the new top line budget amounts, known as 302(b)s, and those committees will begin on crafting new FY16 appropriations bills to pass before the December 11th Continuing Resolution expires.