Tuesday Capitol Hill — Schumer’s Procedural Motion Reaches the Floor at Six Eastern on the Eighth Kaine-Murkowski War-Powers Resolution, the Working Senate Whip Holds 51-46 With Cassidy in Play on the Late Monday Pittsburgh Wire, Murkowski Brings the AUMF Text to a Working Floor Vote at Two Eastern, the Russia Sanctions Bill Moves to Committee Mark-Up at Half Past Two and the House Ukraine Discharge Crosses Into Rules Committee at the Same Hour
The United States Senate sits at twelve noon Eastern on Tuesday with three working tracks calendared into the afternoon and one defining floor vote at six o’clock Eastern in the evening. The Senate Majority Leader files the procedural motion on the eighth iteration of the Kaine-Murkowski war-powers resolution at six o’clock Eastern. The working whip count, on the pre-recess brief the Schumer floor team carried to the eleven o’clock Eastern Monday-evening Senate Democratic conference, holds at fifty-one for and forty-six against, with the Louisiana Republican Bill Cassidy now in working play on the late Monday-evening Pittsburgh wire. Murkowski brings the AUMF text to a working floor vote at two Eastern. The Russia sanctions bill moves to Foreign Relations Committee mark-up at half past two on the five-hundred-per-cent secondary tariff text. The House Ukraine aid discharge petition crosses into Rules Committee at the same hour on the Speaker’s working calendar.
The Procedural Vote at Six Eastern
The Senate Majority Leader’s procedural motion on S.J. Res. 41 — the eighth working iteration of the Kaine-Murkowski war-powers resolution since the original April text was first filed in the late afternoon of the day the President posted the Friday Article II finding to Truth Social — reaches the Senate floor at six o’clock Eastern on Tuesday evening. The Schumer floor team’s working whip on the half-past-ten Eastern Monday-night brief carried fifty signed yes votes, forty-six signed nos and four held positions, of which Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is the one the late Monday-evening Pittsburgh wire has now moved into the working yes column on a working note from the Cassidy staff chief carried to a Pittsburgh political reporter shortly before midnight Eastern. The procedural motion requires a simple majority. The substantive question, on the standing parliamentary inquiry the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee carried into the chamber at the end of the Monday afternoon working session, requires only the same. The honest reading of the Tuesday-evening procedural is that the working majority is now hard to within one to two names.
The Cassidy Position on the Late Pittsburgh Wire
The Louisiana Republican Bill Cassidy’s position, on the working brief the senator’s staff chief carried to a Pittsburgh political reporter on the twenty-three-fifty-five Eastern Monday-night wire, is that the senator will support the procedural motion at six o’clock Eastern on Tuesday evening and will reserve his position on the substantive question to the working text on the floor. The position has been under working review since the Senator’s late April Baton Rouge town hall and has tightened through the Monday morning constituent calls in the Senator’s Lake Charles office. The Cassidy position, taken together with the Murkowski position, the Collins position, the Paul position and the working positions of the Pennsylvania Democrat Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat Casey and the Pennsylvania Republican McCormick, carries the working majority on the substantive question into the room at six o’clock Eastern with a working margin of three to four names.
The Murkowski AUMF Text on the Floor at Two Eastern
The Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski’s AUMF text — the working substitute the Senator first carried in late April on the floor of the Senate as a working third option between the President’s Article II finding and the Kaine working resolution — reaches the Senate floor at two o’clock Eastern on Tuesday afternoon. The working text, on the standing version the Senator’s staff carried to the Foreign Relations Committee on the Monday afternoon working session, runs to forty-one paragraphs, four operative clauses, a two-year sunset, a thirty-day reporting requirement, a working exclusion of ground combat operations on Iranian territory, and a working authorisation of the maritime mission in the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman under the standing Sixth Fleet operational arrangements. The Senator’s working floor remarks, on the standing brief carried to the Senator’s political staff at midnight Eastern Monday night, will run to twelve minutes.
The Russia Sanctions Bill at Half Past Two
The bipartisan Russia sanctions bill, the working five-hundred-per-cent secondary tariff text the Senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham first carried to the Foreign Relations Committee in the late afternoon of the Friday before the Senate broke for the spring recess, moves to Committee mark-up at half past two Eastern on Tuesday afternoon. The President’s working position, on the Saturday-evening Greenville press club readout the Senator from South Carolina gave to the local press, is that the President has “personally greenlit” the bill in the working form on the Committee’s order paper. The mark-up, on the working agenda the Committee’s ranking member circulated through the working membership at the Monday afternoon staff brief, will run to four amendments — two managers’ amendments on the tariff schedule and two members’ amendments on the secondary tariff scope on third-country financial institutions. The working timetable on the Committee carries the bill to the floor in the working week of June second.
The House Ukraine Discharge Into Rules at Half Past Two
The House Ukraine aid discharge petition, the working text that crossed the two-hundred-and-eighteen-signature threshold on the Friday afternoon before the Memorial Day recess and that has carried the working calendar of the House through the working week, crosses into the Rules Committee at half past two Eastern on Tuesday afternoon. The Speaker’s working statement from the half-past-eight Eastern Tuesday-morning press briefing in the Capitol Visitor Center is that the Rules Committee will hold the working text under standing procedure, that the House will take the working measure on the floor on the working calendar of the House — a formulation that political reporters at the briefing read as a holding statement — and that no working date has been set for the floor vote. The discharge calendar the petition’s lead Member carried to the working signatories on the Monday afternoon meeting in the Rayburn 2218 committee room carries the working measure to the floor by the working close of the working week of June second.