The House yesterday took up H.R. 2218, the "Empowering Parents through Quality Charter Schools Act." The only way to make the title of this bill more suspect would be to come up with a stupid acronym for it, which at least has been avoided here. That by itself won't tell you much about what a travesty this legislation is. But perhaps this piece at ourfuture.org can. The House made it through debate time on the eight permitted amendments, but votes are still pending on two of them, plus final passage of course.
The Senate spent its day wrapping up work on and passing the patent reform bill, batting down several amendments along the way. In the end, the bill passed by a vote of 89-9, with a mixed bag of "no" votes, including some of the usual suspects like DeMint and Paul, but also Boxer and Cantwell, for something of a change of pace.
There was of course the special Joint Session convened last night as well, for the purpose of receiving the President's address. By all accounts a good, even inspiring speech. Whether any of the proposals will be able to find their way to the floor and actually pass, I have no idea.
The Senate actually returned to session following the speech, to dispense with the resolution of disapproval of the President's increase of the federal debt ceiling. You'll recall from the debt ceiling deal approved in early August that the President was empowered to raise the limit unilaterally, subject to a resolution of disapproval from the Congress. Senate Republicans called in that chit last night, immediately following the President's address, but were thwarted by the failure of the motion to proceed.
Looking ahead to today:
The House still has the charter school bill pending, but it's not actually on the schedule for today, which may mean they're leaving it for completion next week. In its place is the FY12 Intelligence authorization bill and a raft of amendments, plus a resolution memorializing the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Yes, this is one of the type of resolutions the House wasn't really supposed to be doing anymore. But you didn't think they'd give that up with respect to 9/11, did you?
The Senate will hold a session today, but no votes are expected.
Today's floor and committee schedules appear below the fold.
Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/GqMb4LE-Fxg/-Today-in-Congress
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