Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter
Dear Friends, Last night’s extraordinary release of a draft Supreme Court opinion appearing to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade decision has ensured abortion rights will dominate the conversation on and off the Hill this month, and likely for remainder of this Congress. Expect lots more talk about eliminating the
Defense officials are already busy making the obligatory annual rounds on Capitol Hill in support of the President’s preferred spending priorities. The current steady pace of congressional hearings might suggest that Congress is methodically working its way towards a timely passage of the defense budget. But this burst of activity
Dear Friends, Happy spring! Last week, Congress received President Biden’s FY23 budget, a document that any legislative branch denizen will remind you is merely a proposal. The next couple of months will bring a slew of committee hearings, staff briefings, meetings with advocates, and member project requests as the appropriations
It’s time. Time to talk about the L word. As the cherry trees blossom in Washington and legislators’ minds turn towards reelection, the administration is taking stock of its legacy. In our hyper-polarized era, an administration’s first two years, especially if under unified governance, play an outsized role in the
Dear Friends: As last night’s State of the Union made clear, there are some events and issues that can still bring Congress together, and plenty more that continue to drive them apart. With Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine dominating the world’s attention, Congress has been largely united on the need
Where are we with government funding? It’s déjà vu all over again, as Congress passes another Continuing Resolution (CR). The FY2022 congressional appropriations process—which will provide funding for the federal government from October 1, 2021 until September 30, 2022—is once again delaying final action. After its failure to enact full
Dear Friends: It’s Groundhog Day, so I suppose it’s not surprising that a lot of what’s happening on the Hill feels pretty familiar. Will there finally be an agreement on funding the government for the fiscal year that began over four months ago? Can the Build Back Better agenda –
According to the headlines, last week Majority Leader Chuck Schumer forced the Senate to vote on a potential change to the Senate filibuster. In actuality, Schumer did something very different. What was nominally aimed at reforming the filibuster was actually an attempt to limit all senators’ rights under the rules
Dear Friends, I hope this note finds you all safe and healthy as we transition into 2022. Yesterday marked a dark but important anniversary: one year since the January 6 riot at the Capitol. The trauma of that day lingers for many in Washington and beyond, and I would draw
In marking the one-year anniversary of the January 6th insurrection, many are taking stock of the state of the response as well as our democracy. The latter has not made for easy reading—the US has been categorized as a “backsliding democracy” for the first time or otherwise downgraded by think
Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter
Get in touch
