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Dear Friends: Though Congress remains on recess this week, April should be an exceptionally busy month on the Hill. The President’s FY2027 budget request, released last week, seeks a major boost in defense spending (see Fellow Katina Slavkova’s recent article for more on this) coupled with cuts to many domestic
Tracking government funding, and particularly the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding has been unusually volatile and confusing this year. Given that Congress has already begun work on next year’s (FY27) appropriations bills with hearings (and the President’s budget has belatedly been released on April 3), it’s useful to nail
Earlier this week, I did a walk-through of the Congressional Record for a single day in the House. We covered the call to order, morning-hour debate, recesses, the prayer-journal-pledge, one-minute speeches, suspensions of the rules, voting, the yeas and nays, postponement, official communications to the House, record votes, special order
In early January, President Trump announced that his administration will ask Congress to approve a record $1.5 trillion defense budget for fiscal year 2027. Beyond the sticker shock, recent reports have identified that the Pentagon isn’t quite sure how they’d even spend that much money. It’s easy to get overwhelmed
One thing that confuses a lot of people—and also happens to be pretty hard to get a good layman’s explanation of on the internet—is what exactly is happening on the House floor day-to-day. Honestly, the easiest way to get the rhythm of the House is to actually just sit down
Mike Johnson has had a rough time leading the House of Representatives. Under his speakership, Republicans set the record for the number of failed special rules (votes speakers use to bring bills to the floor), set the modern record for successful discharge petitions to bring bills to the floor over
Guest Post by Dr. Adriana Bankston, 2024-2025 AAAS-ASGCT Congressional Policy Fellow* This has not been a typical year for science in America. Going beyond the headlines is important to understand what policymakers, scientists, and scientific institutions have built over generations. America is a scientific powerhouse, with federal funding fueling research
In late September, I went on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal to talk about the impending government shutdown. After a discussion with the program host, guests get to answer questions from viewers who call into the program. I expected to be challenged on something, but did not anticipate that on that list
So far, the most surprising thing about the shutdown is Democrats’ early polling advantage. A Washington Post poll finds 47% of the public blaming Republicans, versus only 30% for Democrats. The New York Times/Sienna poll conducted before the shutdown puts more blame on Republicans (26%) than Democrats (19%). G. Elliott
Congressional appropriations are having a year. The second Trump administration kicked things off by engaging in a spree of unconstitutional impoundments of congressionally appropriated funds. The Republican Congress followed that up with a rarity: a full-year Continuing Resolution to finish out the fiscal year: unusual in itself, but in covering
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