115th Congress Returns to D.C., Full Schedule Ahead

Lawmakers begin returning to Capitol Hill this week to start the second session of the 115th Congress, with senior congressional leaders from both parties meeting at the Capitol. Washington Post reporter Jeff Stein added they will meet “with White House budget director Mick Mulvaney and legislative-affairs director Marc Short.”

The Senate will reconvene Wednesday, January 3, but House members will not be back in session until next week.

Congress has a full plate but will immediately need to address the looming January 19th deadline to avoid a government shutdown after a financial band aid bill was passed in December to get them through the holidays.

Other items this Congress will face include:

DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), the program for DREAMers, children who were brought to this country by their illegal parents. It will expire March 5. Deportation of the estimated 700,000 children, many now grown and productive members of society, would not substantially help the U.S. and would be devastating to most of them.

The wall along the southern border of the U.S. is being used as a bargaining chip by Trump — save the DACA program in exchange for funding for his wall. Here’s the issue: At no time while campaigning for president did Trump ever say the American people would have to pay for his wall. He always told his followers that Mexico would pay for the wall. After Mexico basically told him to take a hike, he changed his tune and decided to hold the U.S. taxpayers hostage to the tune of $1 billion that could be used to shore up infrastructure that is literally crumbling beneath us in the form of roads, bridges, airports, and more.

CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) funding. Federal coverage of medical costs for low income children — some say 1.9 million and other sources say 9 million children are at risk — will expire if Congress does not vote to extend and fund it.

Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act will expire January 19 unless Congress acts to extend this law that authorizes the collection of communications of foreign intelligence targets without an individualized warrant.

Disaster relief for 2017 disasters. Though the House approved $81 billion before the Christmas break, the bill allocating money to help victims of the devastating 2017 hurricanes and California wildfires has not yet passed in the Senate.

Here is the U.S. House schedule.

Here is a tentative U.S. Senate schedule.

More information for both chambers can be found here.