Tag Archives: U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. House advances Biden’s infrastructure, social programs

By David Morgan and Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to advance key parts of President Joe Biden’s agenda after reaching a tentative compromise between moderates and progressives over which elements should take priority.

The House voted to move forward on a package that would advance Biden’s ambitious plan for trillions of dollars to expand child care and other social programs, championed by the party’s progressive wing.

The vote was 220-212 with no Republicans supporting the measure.

They agreed to vote by Sept. 27 on a $1 trillion infrastructure bill, a priority for moderate Democrats. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also said her chamber would work with the Senate to nail down the details of a larger $3.5 trillion budget with increased spending for social programs.

Biden’s fellow Democrats have little room for error as they try to approve the two massive spending initiatives in the House and Senate, where the party holds razor-thin majorities.

“These negotiations are never easy,” said Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern after his panel approved the deal. Members of the House briefly returned to Washington this week during their scheduled summer break to vote on the measures.

Pelosi had hoped to quickly approve the $3.5 trillion budget outline, which would enable lawmakers to begin filling in the details on the sweeping package that would boost spending on child care, education and other social programs and raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations.

But centrist Democrats, led by Representative Josh Gottheimer, had refused to go along, saying the House must first pass the infrastructure bill, which has already won approval by Republicans and Democrats in the Senate.

Liberals, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have said they will not support the smaller package without the larger one, fearing they will lose leverage.

Democrats hold a narrow 220-212 majority in the House.

Pelosi said that the House would work with the Senate on the details of the multitrillion-dollar budget outline, which Senate Democrats plan to pass using a maneuver that gets around that chamber’s normal rules requiring 60 of the 100 senators to agree to pass most legislation.

“It remains for us to work together, work with the Senate, to write a bill that preserves the privilege of 51 votes in the Senate,” Pelosi said. “So we must work together to do that in a way that passes the House and passes the Senate. And we must do so expeditiously.”

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy blasted Pelosi and other Democrats with bare-knuckle partisan rhetoric for working on an agreement to secure Biden’s domestic spending priorities and voting legislation, without addressing the crisis in Afghanistan.

“Maybe in your caucus, you think it is a great day for you and the Democrats,” McCarthy said. “It’s an embarrassing day to America, it’s an embarrassing day for this floor and it’s embarrassing that you would even move forward with it.”

(Reporting by David Morgan and Susan HeaveyWriting by Andy SullivanEditing by Scott Malone, Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio)

U.S. House backs repeal of 2002 war authorization in bid to end ‘forever wars’

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday backed the repeal of the 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force that allowed the war in Iraq, as lawmakers pull back the authority to declare war from the White House.

The House voted 268 to 161 in favor of revoking the authorization it gave former President George W. Bush to invade Iraq 19 years ago. At least 49 Republicans joined Democrats in favor of repeal, a bipartisan vote that underscored prospects for reining in AUMFs that presidents from both parties have used to justify nearly 20 years of military actions around the globe.

The U.S. Constitution gives the power to declare war to Congress. However, that authority has shifted to the president due to the “forever war” AUMFs, which do not expire – including the 2002 Iraq AUMF and one allowing the fight against al Qaeda and affiliates after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

To be enacted, the measure passed on Thursday must also be approved by the Senate – where its prospects are less certain – and signed into law by President Joe Biden, who has said he supports it.

“I look forward to Congress no longer taking a back seat on some of the most consequential decisions our nation can make,” said Representative Greg Meeks, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, urging support for the repeal.

“There comes a time when certain AUMFs simply become outdated and need to be repealed,” Meeks said.

‘DANGEROUS MESSAGE’

Opponents worry repeal of the 2002 AUMF would dangerously limit the powers of the president and send the message that the United States is pulling back from the Middle East.

Representative Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he was committed to updating the “outdated” AUMF, but he did not want repeal until an alternative was in place.

“This rushed, standalone repeal… sends a dangerous message of disengagement that could dangerous message, which it will, and strengthen al Qaeda and ISIS in the region,” McCaul said.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer threw his weight behind the repeal effort on Wednesday. Schumer said the 2002 AUMF is outdated and repealing it would prevent future presidential “military adventurism” such as former President Donald Trump’s 2020 airstrike on a Baghdad airport, which raised fears of war days before the Republican was to leave office.

Trump cited the 2002 Iraq authorization as one of his justifications for the strike, which killed Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani.

Repeal will need 60 votes to get through the evenly divided 100-member Senate, meaning that it would need the support of at least 10 Republicans to go into effect.

Repeal advocates said they had high hopes of garnering the 60 votes, noting past bipartisan support for stalled efforts to rein in the AUMFs.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell blasted the repeal plan, saying existing authorizations should stay in place until new ones have been completed. “The grave threats posed by ISIS, al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are as real as they’ve ever been,” McConnell said in remarks opening the Senate.

Some members of Congress are also discussing a repeal and replacement of the 2001 AUMF passed for the Afghanistan war.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

U.S. Senate’s McConnell opposes Capitol attack panel; House set to vote

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Just hours before the U.S. House of Representatives was expected to vote to approve the formation of a commission to investigate the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol attack by Donald Trump’s supporters, the Senate’s top Republican set up a major roadblock by announcing his opposition to the proposal.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “I have made the decision to oppose the House Democrats’ slanted and unbalanced proposal for another commission to study the events of Jan. 6.”

Referring to existing congressional investigations and the previous arrests of hundreds of people in connection with the riot, McConnell slammed the door on further negotiations on establishing an independent commission to investigate the matter.

“There will continue to be no shortage of robust investigations,” McConnell said.

In the evenly split Senate, Republicans can block the legislation. At least 60 votes are needed to advance most bills in the 100-member Senate.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said he will schedule a debate on the legislation, calling an independent investigation necessary. At least two Republican senators – Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney – have signaled support, according to media reports.

Republican leaders in the House also oppose the Democratic-backed House bill. Democrats narrowly control the House and expect to pass the measure even if they do not draw much Republican support.

Multiple senior Republicans on Tuesday objected to the formation of a commission, whose proposed investigation could scrutinize Trump’s role in inspiring the attack with false claims that last year’s presidential election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud.

The 10-member panel would be modeled after a bipartisan commission created to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by al Qaeda militants. It would face a Dec. 31 deadline to produce a public report, including recommendations for preventing another attack on the Capitol.

Trump on Tuesday urged Republicans to vote against the proposal, calling it a “trap” inspired by “the radical left.” House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, who spoke with Trump by telephone Jan. 6 and announced his opposition to the commission on Tuesday, could also be a key witness for the commission.

The commission would be charged with looking at security and intelligence failures surrounding Jan. 6, when Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol in a riot that left five people dead. The mob interrupted the formal congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the November election.

Congressional Republicans risk drawing Trump’s ire if they vote for the commission, which could call the former president as a witness to explain his actions including an incendiary speech to supporters shortly before the riot. Opposing the commission could alienate independent voters troubled by the violence.

Some lawmakers fear that a failure to create an independent commission could hurt chances that the U.S. public will learn the full story about the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

“An independent 9/11-style review is critical to removing the politics surrounding Jan. 6,” Republican Representative John Katko told the House Rules Committee on Tuesday.

Katko, a co-sponsor of the legislation, added, “This is about facts, it’s not about partisan politics.”

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Democrat who crafted the bipartisan measure with Katko, on Wednesday told MSNBC he was optimistic the bill would be approved by the House and Senate.

McCarthy and McConnell have complained that the commission should do more than concentrate on Jan. 6 by investigating other “political violence.” Some Republicans want an investigation of the shooting of Republican congressman Steve Scalise during a practice at a baseball field in 2017 that left him gravely wounded and of protests in many U.S. cities last year against racism and police brutality.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Will Dunham and Scott Malone)

Texas, Florida among states to gain U.S. House seats in latest census

By Joseph Ax

(Reuters) -Texas, Florida and North Carolina are among the states that will add congressional seats next year, the U.S. Census Bureau said on Monday, as it released population data that reapportions U.S. House of Representatives members and Electoral College votes among the states.

The release of the data, which captured the entire U.S. population as of April 2020, sets the stage for a battle that could reshape political power in Washington over the next decade.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the 435 seats in the House and the votes in the Electoral College that select the U.S. president every four years are divided among the 50 states based on population, with every state receiving at least one congressional seat.

The seats are reallocated every 10 years following the decennial census count.

Texas will receive two congressional seats, and five states – Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, Montana and Oregon – will gain one congressional seat each, the census bureau said.

New York, California, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia will each lose one seat.

The shift in seats to states such as Texas and Florida, where Republicans control the statehouses, could be enough to erase Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the House. Republicans in both of those states have in the past engaged in aggressive gerrymandering, the process by which maps are deliberately redrawn to benefit one party over another.

Every state uses the census data to redraw lines both for districts and thousands of state legislative seats, a process known as redistricting.

That work cannot be completed until the census releases more precise block-by-block data, which is slated for September. The delay has raised concerns about whether states will have time to complete redistricting ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal courts have no power to restrict political gerrymandering, although racial gerrymandering – which aims to curb the political power of specific racial or ethnic groups – remains unlawful.

The four most populous U.S. states – California, Texas, Florida and New York – have more than 110 million residents combined and will hold about one-third of the House seats.

The shift of seven seats among 13 states was the smallest number of seats moving among states in any decade since the current method of calculating them was adopted in 1941, officials said.

Overall, the U.S. population stood at 331,449,281 as of April 2020, a 7.4% increase over the previous decade, according to the agency. That rise is the second-slowest in history, behind only the 1930s, census officials said.

Utah’s population grew faster than any other state’s, increasing by more than 18% since 2010. Only three states lost population, led by West Virginia, which saw its population decrease by 3.2%.

Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital, grew by 14.6% to a population of 689,545. Congressional Democrats have passed legislation to admit the district as the 51st state, but Republicans oppose the measure.

The territory of Puerto Rico, which was devastated by Hurricane Maria in 2017, has seen its population decrease by 11.8% since 2010.

Wyoming remains the least populated state, with 576,851 residents.

(Reporting by Joseph AxAdditional reporting by Jason Lange and Doina ChiacuEditing by Bill Berkrot and Sonya Hepinstall)

U.S. House to vote Wednesday on Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 package

By Makini Brice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives will take up the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill on Wednesday, officials said on Tuesday, with the chamber’s expected approval enabling the Democratic president to sign the legislation into law later this week.

Passage of the massive package, one of the biggest U.S. anti-poverty measures since the 1960s, would give Biden and the Democrats who control Congress a major legislative victory less than two months into his presidency.

The House will consider the legislation starting at 9:00 a.m. EST (1400 GMT) on Wednesday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters. The bill was just sent over to the House on Tuesday morning from the Senate.

The House Rules Committee announced it will meet at midday on Tuesday to prepare the bill for floor action. The committee sets the terms for debate and amendments on bills.

The Senate, where Democrats have effective control, passed its version of the bill on Saturday after a marathon overnight session. The upper chamber of Congress eliminated or pared back some provisions in an original House bill, including an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The changes the Senate made must be approved by the House before it can make its way to Biden’s desk.

Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a member of the House Democratic leadership, called it a “transformational bill” and told reporters, “We’ll pass it, hopefully with some Republican votes.”

Democrats hold a very narrow majority in the House, meaning they can afford to lose only a handful of votes by their own members against the bill.

The first version of the bill passed the House without a single Republican vote. Two moderate Democrats joined Republicans in voting against that version. One of them, Representative Kurt Schrader of Oregon, said on Monday he would now vote for the bill with the Senate changes.

“My concerns remain on the size and scope of this bill but believe the Senate changes provide meaningful relief for Oregonians in need,” Schrader wrote in a post on Facebook.

Republicans, who broadly supported economic relief early in the coronavirus pandemic, have criticized the price tag of the Biden relief package.

Some progressives in the House have criticized the Senate’s changes. But Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat who heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters she thought members of her group would back the legislation.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki praised the legislation at a news conference on Monday, saying that while there were some changes on the margins, it represented the “core” of what Biden originally proposed.

(Reporting by David Morgan and Lisa Lambert; Editing by Scott Malone, Paul Simao and Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. House to bring Trump incitement charge to Senate, launching second impeachment trial

By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives on Monday will formally charge  former President Donald Trump with inciting insurrection in a fiery speech to his followers before this month’s deadly attack on the Capitol, signaling the start of his second impeachment trial.

Nine House Democrats who will serve as prosecutors will proceed through the building where hundreds of Trump supporters fought with police, leaving five dead, at about 7 p.m. on Monday (0000 GMT), carrying the article of impeachment to the Senate where Trump will face trial.

A similar ceremony was carried out for Trump’s first impeachment trial last January, when the House clerk and sergeant at arms led a small procession of lawmakers through a hushed Capitol.

It will mark two historic firsts – Trump is the only U.S. president to have been impeached by the House twice and will be the first to face trial after leaving office. Conviction in the Senate could result in a vote to ban him from holding future office.

Leaders of the Senate, which is divided 50-50 with Democrats holding a majority because of the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris, have agreed not to start the trial until Feb. 9. That gives Trump more time to prepare a defense and allows the chamber to focus on President Joe Biden’s early priorities, including Cabinet appointments.

Ten House Republicans joined Democrats in voting to impeach Trump, a step akin to an indictment in a criminal trial. Senate Democrats will need the support of 17 Republicans to convict him, a steep climb given Trump’s continued popularity with Republican voters.

‘A FLAMING FIRE’

Multiple Republicans, including the party’s Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, have condemned the violence and criticized Trump for inciting it. Republican Senator Mitt Romney told CNN on Sunday that the trial was necessitated by Trump’s inflammatory call to his supporters.

“I believe that what is being alleged and what we saw, which is incitement to insurrection, is an impeachable offense. If not, what is?” said Romney, a frequent Trump critic and the only Republican to vote to convict him at his first impeachment trial.

But a significant number of Republican lawmakers have raised objections to the impeachment. Senator Marco Rubio pronounced the trial “stupid” and “counterproductive” on “Fox News Sunday.”

“We already have a flaming fire in this country and it’s like taking a bunch of gasoline and pouring it on top of the fire,” Rubio said.

The case is a simpler one than Trump’s first impeachment, which focused on a phone call with Ukraine’s president that was disclosed by a whistleblower. In this case, the actions in question played out in a public speech and a separate phone call to a Georgia election official that was released to the news media.

Trump was acquitted in his first trial last year, which took nearly three weeks and dealt with charges the president had abused his power and obstructed Congress in relation to his call pressing Ukraine to investigate Biden. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Sunday the second trial would be fairly quick.

“Everyone wants to put this awful chapter in American history behind us. But sweeping it under the rug will not bring healing,” Schumer said in New York. “I believe it will be a fair trial. But it will move relatively quickly and not take up too much time because we have so much else to do.”

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Scott Malone and Peter Cooney)

U.S. House begins debating impeachment of Trump

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday began debating legislation to impeach President Donald Trump for the second time of his presidency.

The House is set to first hold a vote setting rules for Wednesday’s debate. If it is approved it will set the stage for a vote later in the day on passage of one article of impeachment charging Trump with inciting insurrection in a speech he made last week that led to rioting in the U.S. Capitol.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; editing by Susan Heavey)

U.S. House overrides Trump’s veto of key defense bill

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives voted on Monday to override President Donald Trump’s veto of a $740 billion defense policy bill.

The 322-87 House vote, in which 109 Republicans joined Democrats to override Trump’s veto, leaves the bill’s fate to the Republican-led Senate, where a final vote is expected this week. If the Senate seconds the House action, the bill becomes law. It would be the first veto override of Trump’s presidency.

Trump said he blocked the legislation because he wanted it to overturn liability protections for social media companies unrelated to national security, and he opposed a provision to rename military bases named after generals who fought for the pro-slavery Confederacy during the Civil War.

Twenty Democrats, including the prominent progressive, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, opposed the override.

Representative Mac Thornberry, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, urged Republicans ahead of the vote not to side with the president.

“The world is watching what we do,” the Texas Republican said. “I would only ask that as members vote, they put the best interests of the country first. There is no other consideration that should matter.”

The legislation, which addresses a host of defense policy issues and includes a pay raise for U.S. troops, has been passed by Congress every year since 1961.

The bill had earlier passed both chambers of Congress with margins greater than the two-thirds majorities needed to override the president’s veto. But Trump vetoed it anyway and the bill went back to Congress for a possible override.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Alistair Bell and Aurora Ellis)

Lawmakers block Trump’s requested changes on coronavirus bill

By Andy Sullivan and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday blocked attempts to alter a $2.3 trillion coronavirus aid and government spending package, leaving its status in doubt after President Donald Trump demanded extensive changes to the legislation.

Democrats sought to increase direct payments to Americans included in the bill from $600 to $2,000 per person as part of a coronavirus economic relief initiative, acting on one of Trump’s requests. Republicans, who oppose the higher amount, blocked that request.

Republicans then moved to change the amount of foreign aid included in the package, seeking to address another one of Trump’s complaints. Democrats blocked that effort.

The flurry of activity on the House floor did nothing to break a standoff that threatens desperately needed assistance for millions of Americans and raises the prospect of a partial government shutdown at a time when officials are trying to distribute two coronavirus vaccines.

The 5,500-page bill took months to negotiate and was supported by Trump’s administration.

With the status quo unchanged, it was unclear whether Trump would sign the package into law or hold out for further action.

Without his signature, unemployment benefits for those thrown out of work by the pandemic are due to expire as soon as Saturday, and the U.S. government would be forced into a partial shutdown starting on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Howard Goller)

U.S. Supreme Court throws out challenge to Trump census immigrant plan

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday threw out a lawsuit seeking to block President Donald Trump’s plan to exclude immigrants living illegally in the United States from the population count used to allocate congressional districts to states.

The 6-3 ruling on ideological lines, with the court’s six conservatives in the majority and three liberals dissenting, gives Trump a short-term victory as he pursues his hardline policies toward immigration.

“At present, this case is riddled with contingencies and speculation that impede judicial review,” the ruling said. The decision noted that the court was not weighing the merits of Trump’s plan.

Challengers led by New York state and the American Civil Liberties Union said Trump’s proposal would dilute the political clout of states with larger numbers of such immigrants, including heavily Democratic California, by undercounting state populations and depriving them of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“If the administration actually tries to implement this policy, we’ll sue. Again. And we’ll win,” said Dale Ho, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union who represents the challengers.

The administration has not disclosed what method it would use to calculate the number of people it proposed to exclude or which subsets of immigrants would be targeted. Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall told the justices during the Nov. 30 oral argument in the case that the administration could miss a Dec. 31 statutory deadline to finalize a Census Bureau report to Trump containing the final population data, including the number of immigrants excluded.

During the oral argument, Wall told the justices that it is “very unlikely” the administration would amass data to exclude all immigrants in the country illegally. Instead, Wall said, it may propose excluding certain groups, such as the fewer than 100,000 in federal detention, and the total number may not be high enough to affect apportionment.

Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in a dissenting opinion that the government can currently try to exclude millions of individuals, including those who are in immigration detention or deportation proceedings, and the some 700,000 young people known as “Dreamers” who came to the U.S. illegally as children.

“Where, as here, the government acknowledges it is working to achieve an allegedly illegal goal, this court should not decline to resolve the case simply because the government speculates that it might not fully succeed,” Breyer added.

There are an estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally. The challengers have argued that Trump’s policy violates both the Constitution and the Census Act, a federal law that outlines how the census is conducted.

The Constitution requires apportionment of House seats to be based upon the “whole number of persons in each state.” Until now, the U.S. government’s practice was to count all people regardless of their citizenship or immigration status.

By statute, the president is required to send Congress a report in early January with the population of each of the states and their entitled number of House districts.

The challengers have argued that Trump’s plan could leave several million people uncounted and cause California, Texas and New Jersey to lose House seats.

A three-judge panel in New York ruled against the administration in September.

The Supreme Court in June 2019 ruled against Trump’s effort to add a citizenship question to the census. Critics said the question was intended to frighten immigrants from taking part in the population count and artificially reduce population numbers in heavily Democratic areas.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; additional reporting by Andrew Chung; editing by Jonathan Oatis)