Free Republic

On Wednesday, 12 May 2021, HB1927 came back from the Texas Senate to the House. The House had passed the bill with a good margin. Governor Abbot said he would sign the bill. The Senate just barely passed the bill, but included eight amendments. The question was: Would the House accept the amendments, and send the bill to the Governor’s desk for signature, or would the House send the bill to a conference committee. The conference committee could work out a compromise with the House. If they did, then the bill would have to go back to the Senate and...

All indications are that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi will skip the formal conference committee process to reconcile the Senate and House versions of Obamacare but instead will reconcile their difference through closed-door negotiations. But back in 2006 Harry Reid stood on the Senate floor and complained about legislative dealmaking outside of the formal conference committee process when the Senate was discussing asbestos legislation. He also whined about the use of "managers' amendments" to create legislative deals. Reid of course used "managers amendments" to slip in all of those secret deals in the Senate version of Obamacare. But back in...

Harry Reid finally begged, cajoled and bribed enough votes to pass a health-care-reform bill through the Senate. But before Democrats break out the champagne, they should realize that the road to final passage hasn't gotten any easier. The bill must now go to a conference committee to resolve significant differences between the House and Senate versions. And history shows that agreement is far from guaranteed. In fact, just last year, a bill reforming the Indian Health Service died when the conference committee couldn't overcome its differences on abortion. Similarly, in 2007, bills dealing with issues as varied as campaign-finance reform,...

The most remarkable thing happened in Washington this past Tuesday. Congress scrapped the F-22 stealth fighter jet, killing off a 30-year-old Pentagon hardware program that employs 25,000 people in 46 states. It was a dogfight almost to the end over $1.75 billion and the need to remake military readiness. Threats and promises, blunt talk and grand gestures -- all were deployed to support an appeal to common sense and for urgent change, according to principals involved. The White House coordinated the ultimately successful vote-wrangling, and its specific tactics may show up again in another epic battle now unfolding: getting Congress...

The Senate on Thursday voted to scuttle money for a second engine powering the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, handing President Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates a second victory on Pentagon priorities. In a voice vote, the Senate struck $438.9 million in funding from the 2010 defense authorization bill for the second engine, which is produced by General Electric and Rolls-Royce. Senators specifically approved an amendment sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) that bars spending on an alternative engine until the Defense secretary certifies that such a program would reduce the fighter program’s costs, improve the planes’ readiness and...

The ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee says the battle to fund more than 187 F-22 stealth fighters is not over, even though pro-Raptor forces suffered a stinging defeat in the Senate this week. Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon of California told HUMAN EVENTS the next F-22 war zone is a House-Senate committee conference on defense spending. There, as ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, McKeon will fight to preserve final bill language to provide for 12 more jets, as the House approved...Gen. John Corley, who heads Air Force Air Combat Command in Langley, Va., sent a...