Rules Committee Advances Conference Report Toward a Friday Vote

The ball is officially rolling.

The House Committee on Rules met past the midnight hour Thursday night, setting up a vote for a short-term continuing resolution, and moving the conference report toward a House vote on Friday.

The conference report funds the government at a level that is consistent with the Budget Control Act, but two provisions were stripped from it in order for it to be more palatable to Democrats.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., said that there are only two changes in this conference report: changes to how the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is funded and restrictions on Cuban travel.

“I am pleased that we were able to resolve the major disagreements that Democrats expressed regarding legislative provisions inserted by House Republicans into several of these bills,” House Appropriations ranking member Norm Dicks, D-Wash., said in a statement.

But just because conference report is going to be brought to the floor Friday, doesn’t mean that everyone is thrilled with the process. The standalone version of the appropriations bill didn’t get posted until late Wednesday night (early Thursday morning), and the conference report Rules meeting didn’t happen until nearly midnight Thursday night. The bill is about 2,300 pages long, and the normal rule to have bills available for at least three days before a vote has been waived.

“I didn’t go to a speed reading school,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. “I’m willing to bet most people didn’t read this bill. What I fear is that when all is said and done we’re going to find things we didn’t expect…This was not the process we were promised.”

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