New York Times
By David S. Joachim
April 28, 2014
WASHINGTON
— When members of Congress are campaigning for re-election in their
districts, they are calling for legislation to address big problems with
immigration, taxes,
health care, worker pay, climate change and the country’s aging
infrastructure. But as they return to Washington on Monday after a
two-week break, there is almost no prospect for new legislation in those
areas until after Election Day.
Instead,
lawmakers will take up the kind of workaday legislation that they have
only recently been able to agree on, namely keeping the government’s
lights on. Both chambers
convene at 2 p.m.
House
Republican leaders, intent on avoiding a repeat of the government
shutdown last fall that hurt them in the polls, plan to hold votes this
week on two spending proposals
for 2015 that are considered among the least contentious: for military
construction and Veterans Affairs, and for the legislative branch,
according to a memo sent to House Republicans on Friday by the majority
leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia.
Despite
the modest legislative agenda, there will still be plenty of political
drama. At a meeting of the Republican conference on Tuesday, Speaker
John A. Boehner of
Ohio is expected to be confronted about a speech he made on Thursday in
his home state in which he mocked the most conservative House members
for thwarting immigration legislation.
The
House will also soon take up a resolution by the Oversight and
Government Reform Committee to hold a former Internal Revenue Service
official, Lois Lerner, in contempt
of Congress for refusing to answer questions about her role in holding
up applications for tax exemption from conservative political groups
before the last election, according to Mr. Cantor’s memo, which was
provided by a spokesman.
Ms.
Lerner faced the oversight panel last year and read a statement in her
defense. She then refused to answer questions, invoking her Fifth
Amendment right to not incriminate
herself. In April, Republicans on the committee recommended a contempt
citation, claiming that her prepared remarks amounted to a waiver of her
Fifth Amendment rights.
On
Monday, Ms. Lerner’s lawyer, William W. Taylor III, sent a six-page
letter to Mr. Boehner and Mr. Cantor requesting a chance to make a case
for why the House should
not hold her in contempt.
“The
law is clear that she did not waive her Fifth Amendment privilege,” Mr.
Taylor wrote. He added that “the committee did not satisfy the minimum
procedural requirements
for holding her in contempt, because it did not order her to answer any
questions.”
Mr.
Cantor, in his memo to colleagues, wrote that the House would also take
up legislation to expand charter schools, make permanent a
research-and-development tax credit
and crack down on human trafficking. President Obama has long sought to
make the tax credit permanent, but the parties remain divided over how
to replace the significant loss to the Treasury over the coming decade.
In
the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, the majority leader,
Harry Reid of Nevada, plans to hold a procedural vote this week on
legislation that would raise the
federal minimum wage. It is likely to fail.
Senate Democrats are also planning to take up a proposal to make college more affordable for middle-income households.
Like
so much of the 2014 legislative agenda in both chambers, the Senate
proposals are more about drawing contrasts with the opposition party
than an earnest attempt at
lawmaking. With just a few weeks left before the summer campaign
season, it is all about the midterms.
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