DREAM Act Portal Forum - The Senate Agenda for 2009 -When is it DREAM's Turn Edition!!!

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Re: The Senate Agenda for 2009 -When is it DREAM's Turn Edition!!!

^ We don't really know yet javi. Your guess is as good as ours.

Thanks for the notice dayDREAMer. I've updated the list. CNN said the Senate was likely to debate their version of the stimulus next week.

UPDATE: SCHIP passes Senate!

Re: The Senate Agenda for 2009 -When is it DREAM's Turn Edition!!!

sweet, s-chip passed. Now there's only the stimulus bill and we should get into our next set of items. Hopefully dream will be in there.

Re: The Senate Agenda for 2009 -When is it DREAM's Turn Edition!!!

S-CHIP Expansion is now the law of the land too; the President signed the legislation today.

The Stimulus is hitting turbulence in the Senate and may require a second week of debate next week. After that week, there's the President's Day recess and they'll be back to work starting on Feb. 23rd.

The Democratic Leadership should have a press conference to announce their next set of initiatives. Don't want to get people too excited about that press conference/press release as they might/probably discuss energy legislation, stem cells, and tougher financial industry oversight regulation in the next batch of bills. Looking out for that education reform bill though.

UPDATE: The Senate will try to finish the bill this week and leave the final week before the President's Day Recess to resolve differences between House and Senate versions. They hope to have the Stimulus ready for the President before the President's Day Recess.

Re: The Senate Agenda for 2009 -When is it DREAM's Turn Edition!!!

We're getting the first inkling on what will be next on the agenda. Stem cells, financial industry regulation reform, renewable energy initiatives, and mortgage foreclosure stabilization could be the next agenda items.

Hardened Obama Plans New Fights

Quote:

For Obama’s next act, the program is the same as he has been planning for months: New Deal-style plans to rescue struggling homeowners and rewrite regulations on the financial markets, plus a budget proposal that lays the groundwork for sweeping health care reform.

Quote:

For the near term, Obama’s public agenda will keep its overwhelming emphasis on domestic matters, even as many of the most fundamental questions are in foreign policy. Within the administration, urgent reviews of Iraq and Afghanistan policies are underway. But the West Wing itself has been preoccupied, with Emanuel himself taking the lead on legislative arm-twisting on the stimulus vote.

The president’s next few agenda items will be grouped as “getting the country’s financial house in order” — a plan to help struggling homeowners, financial regulatory reform and the budget.

Quote:

“Financial regulatory and housing are the other … legs of the economic stool,” Emanuel said. Looking ahead, he also mentioned stem-cell research and renewable standards on energy, Obama continues to plan for year-one action on health care, starting with his budget request, although officials announce that his ambitions have been set back by the withdrawal of Tom Daschle, who was to be his White House health czar and secretary of Health and Human Services.

Quote:

“There will be a lot of things [going on] slowly but concurrently,” a White House official said. “Senate] Finance will start working on health care, [House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry] Waxman will start working on energy, [House Financial Services Committee Chairman] Barney Frank will start working on regulatory reform.”

Capitol Hill Democrats expect an energy bill to be fast-tracked, since Waxman wants to move ahead on a comprehensive energy and global warming bill. The White House may only pursue a lesser initial package dealing with such matters as funding the transmission grid.

As for strategy, the President plans on reaching out directly to the American people like his road trip to Indiana and Florida instead of trying to focus too much on the appearance of bipartisanship.

Quote:

But the strategy to promote these items is getting an emergency overhaul. Obama plans to travel more and campaign more in an effort to pressure lawmakers with public support, rather than worrying about whether he can win over Republican votes in Congress. Officials suggested that the new, more partisan tone Obama embraced last week in his speech before House Democrats at their retreat and continued at his news conference Monday was what he should have been doing all along.

Quote:

Reflecting as “somebody who has been in this town,” he observed that “there’s an insatiable appetite for the notion of bipartisanship here and we allowed that to get ahead of ourselves.”

But Emanuel said that they recognized they had overdone their initial outreach to Republicans and had offered "a sharp message for the last week."

For now, the hard-charging chief of staff added, “He has an open hand, but he has a very firm handshake.”

Re: The Senate Agenda for 2009 -When is it DREAM's Turn Edition!!!

I really hope education sneaks in there somewhere, that way we could attach dream to it. If not, would it be possible to randomly introduce the bill anyway?

Re: The Senate Agenda for 2009 -When is it DREAM's Turn Edition!!!

Well, we'll see what they announce next but it looks like these are the next items that they'll discuss. President Obama mentioned education as one of his top four priorities (economy, health care, energy, and education) so we might see education reform in the batch of bills after this one.

In the meantime, we should see the Dream Act introduced as a bill. In 2007, Sen. Durbin introduced the Dream Act on March 7 of the first year of the 110th Congress. It is now mid February of the first year of the 111th Congress. Hopefully, we'll see the Dream Act introduced in bill format soon.

Next week is the President's Day Recess, and the Senate will not be in session. They'll be back starting Feb. 23rd.

Re: The Senate Agenda for 2009 -When is it DREAM's Turn Edition!!!

Not satisfied with the billions for clean energy projects in the stimulus package, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said today he will work to pass a new energy bill within a matter of weeks.

Reid -- who's helped organize a clean energy summit next week in Washington that is bringing former president President Clinton and vice president Al Gore to town along with entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens -- said he's asked Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) to prepare a bill that will set a national renewable portfolio standard.

Quote:

"We have a really nice package in the recovery bill that we passed, but we need to do more," Reid said in an interview. "We will continue to focus attention on something that's vitally important to the safety and national security of this country, which is dependence on foreign oil."

Reid, who predicted the Senate could complete work on the energy bill during the chamber's upcoming six-week work period, said the measure would also include provisions addressing the nation's electricity grid.

Once the energy bill is done, Reid said, legislators will turn their attention to climate change legislation that could pass the Senate "later this summer."

"That could involve cap and trade or a carbon tax," he added.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/...ive_focus.html

Re: The Senate Agenda for 2009 -When is it DREAM's Turn Edition!!!

This week, the Senate is debating the DC House Voting Rights Act.

The bill will allow DC's non-voting representative a real vote in the House. Currently, DC's representative, Eleanor Holmes Norton, can vote on House bills but her vote doesn't count in the actual tally of votes. The DC House Voting Rights Act will rectify that.

UPDATE: The bill will also allow another representative in Utah. The DC House Voting Rights Act recently passed cloture, 62-34, and will pass the Senate by the end of this week. The New York Times reports a court challenge will likely follow after President Obama signs the bill as to the Constitutionality of the legislation.

UPDATE 2: In the 62-34 cloture vote, Sen. Byrd (D-WV) and Sen. Baucus (D-MT) voted against cloture. This marks the first time in the 111th Congress that any Democrat strayed from a Democratic agenda item.

UPDATE 3: President Obama's budget will be the main legislative item of discussion in April.

Re: The Senate Agenda for 2009 -When is it DREAM's Turn Edition!!!

I haven't followed the first term of a president b4, but doesn't it seem as if they are moving quite fast? It has only been a little over a month, but they have gotten a lot of things done.

Re: The Senate Agenda for 2009 -When is it DREAM's Turn Edition!!!

education reform #7, we should be eyeing that, but how is stem cell research over education reform?