118th United States Congress Thread, Pt. 4

(The Guardian) Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont who twice ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, introduced a bill to establish a four-day US working week.

Studies and pilot programmes have shown that four-day workweeks can increase productivity and happiness. Given Republican control of the House and a Senate split 51-49 in favour of Democrats, however, the legislation stands little chance of success.

“Moving to a 32-hour workweek with no loss of pay is not a radical idea,” Sanders said on Thursday. -- Today, American workers are over 400% more productive than they were in the 1940s. And yet millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages than they were decades ago … It is time to reduce the stress level in our country and allow Americans to enjoy a better quality of life. It is time for a 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay.

(The Guardian) Congressional leaders announce deal on government funding, averting partial shutdown
Congress’s top Democrats and Republicans say they have reached a final agreement on government funding, and will move to enact legislation before the end of the day Friday that will prevent a partial shutdown.

The sticking point was funding for the Department of Homeland Security, with Democrats over the weekend accusing Republicans of turning down their attempts to channel funds to the department to help it deal with migrant arrivals at the southern border, according to Politico.

The two sides appear to have worked out their disagreement. Here’s what Republican House speaker Mike Johnson had to say: An agreement has been reached for DHS appropriations, which will allow completion of the FY24 appropriations process. House and Senate committees have begun drafting bill text to be prepared for release and consideration by the full House and Senate as soon as possible.

It was much the same tone from Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer: Senate and House leaders and the White House have reached an agreement to finish the final set of full year appropriations bills. The Senate and House Appropriations Committees are in the process of finalizing text and reports for Congress to closely review and consider as soon as possible.

Funding for a chunk of Washington’s departments, including homeland security, defense and state, expires at midnight on Friday. Congress passed legislation to fund the other half of the US government earlier this month.

(The Guardian) The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, said this morning he had a “lengthy” conversation with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also expected to address Senate Republicans later in the day.

During the call, Johnson said he expressed “House Republicans’ strong support for Israel and their efforts” in Gaza and his “strong disagreement” with the Democratic Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, a strong defender of the Jewish state who last week identified Netanyahu as one of the major impediments to peace and called for new elections in the country when the war winds down.

“We think it’s not only foolhardy, it’s dangerous for him to be trying to suggest how Israel should run its domestic affairs in the midst of its conflict,” Johnson said.

On Wednesday, Punchbowl News reported that Netanyahu was expected to speak virtually to Senate Republicans during their lunch meeting. The move underscores Netanyahu’s alliance with Republicans, forged over more than a decade and under three US presidencies.

(The Guardian) Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Democrats on the Senate judiciary committee, did not quite tell NBC they agreed with growing calls for the supreme court justice Sonia Sotomayor to retire, so Joe Biden can nominate a younger liberal replacement. But they nearly did. “I’m very respectful of Justice Sotomayor,” Blumenthal said. “I have great admiration for her. But I think she really has to weigh the competing factors. We should learn a lesson. And it’s not like there’s any mystery here about what the lesson should be. The old saying – graveyards are full of indispensable people, ourselves in this body included.”

That lesson – a harsh one for anyone to contemplate – springs from the case of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the great liberal justice who declined to retire in 2014, when she was 81 and when Democrats held the White House and the Senate, then died in September 2020, at 87 and with Republicans in control.

That allowed Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell to ram through a hardline replacement, Amy Coney Barrett, and tilt the court firmly right, 6-3.

That court has issued major rulings including removing the federal right to abortion, striking down race-based affirmative action in college admissions and loosening gun rights. Progressives fear more such rulings to come.

Sotomayor is 69 and suffers from diabetes. She recently remarked on feeling “tired” while “working harder than I ever had”.

Blumenthal said Sotomayor was “a highly accomplished and, obviously, fully functioning justice right now. Justices have to make their personal decisions about their health, and their level of energy, but also to keep in mind the larger national and public interest in making sure that the court looks and thinks like America.”

Whitehouse said he was “not joining any calls” for Sotomayor to step down. But he also offered a stark warning: “Run it to 7-2 and you go from a captured court to a full Maga court. Certainly I think if Justice Ginsburg had it to do over again, she might have re-thought her confidence in her own health.”

Sotomayor did not comment. Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson, told NBC: “President Biden believes that decisions to retire from the supreme court should be made by the justices themselves and no one else.”

(The Guardian) The House has voted to block the reauthorization of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a high-profile warrantless surveillance program that is now in limbo ahead of a 19 April expiration date.

House Republicans have been fiercely divided over how to handle the issue, and Wednesday’s vote comes months after a similar process to reform and reauthorize the program fell apart before it even reached the House floor.

The law allows the US government to collect the communications of targeted foreigners abroad by compelling service providers to produce copies of messages and internet data, or networks to intercept and turn over phone call and message data.

It is controversial because it allows the government to incidentally collect messages and phone data of Americans without a court order if they interacted with the foreign target, even though the law prohibits section 702 from being used by the National Security Agency to specifically target US citizens.