Molly Reynolds

Senior Fellow, @BrookingsGov. @smithcollege and @umich grad. Not the Senate parliamentarian, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

Everyone, and I mean everyone, is ready for recess.

[ringwiss @ringwiss]

So much chaos in this clip!

(Sound up.)

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

Excellent encapsulation of what today is and is not the deadline for.

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

There's a...Big Byrd problem with this plan, you say?

[Bobby Kogan @BBKogan]

@RichardRubinDC There are a billion Byrd rule violations in normal approps. You can appropriate money, but you can’t do anything even remotely resembling a CR (or typical full-year approps government wide).

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

This is, I believe, the first time the Intel has ever gotten a reconciliation instruction, for those (approximately five) of you keeping score at home.

[Aaron Fritschner @Fritschner]

The $13 billion price tag for intel is noteworthy imo. We've heard about replacing munitions stocks, repairing bases and equipment, etc, but this intel figure is close to the reported total annual CIA budget. What's this money for? I bet a lot of rank and file Rs have no idea

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

In a year where we've already embarked on a number of new reconciliation adventures, instructing the Intelligence Committee would be another one.

[Reese Gorman @reesejgorman]

News: The White House wants the House to pass a super narrow reconciliation package off the floor by the end of next week, multiple sources tell NOTUS.

The working plan is for it to include 4 titles: House Admin, Ag, Intel and Armed Services

Would include: $70 billion for defense, $20 billion for ag and SAVE America Act.

No cuts planned at the moment.

This is drastically different than what Speaker Mike Johnson originally had been telling members that it would be a huge package with a bunch of priorities in it.

This is just the working plan the WH and Johnson have been pitching and is likely to change as more members give input.

https://t.co/lZFVEqgMew

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

this would be the highest and best use of the 119th house's chaos energy.

[ringwiss @ringwiss]

I have never seen such a perfect opportunity for a queen-of-the-hill rule. Give members the choice between permanent standard time, permanent DST and the status quo.

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

Ah yes, @MattGlassman312's 3rd rule of Congress-watching: the hardest questions involve counting days.

[Eleanor Mueller @Eleanor_Mueller]

👀 House GOP leaders *still* have not sent the housing bill to the White House, I'm told — so the 10-day clock still has not started.

Trump and Johnson are expected to discuss when to send the bill — and start the clock — at their meeting this afternoon, I'm told.

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

A week when one might want to be able to answer this question is a great week to have had congress dot gov on the fritz.

Is it a standard reporting lag? Did it happen and we don't see it because of a tech issue? Or did it just not happen? Who knows!

[ringwiss @ringwiss]

The question is whether the bill has actually been presented to the president. If he was going to sign it today, then I would assume it was done this morning, but it’s not entirely clear yet.

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

for no reason whatsoever, querying CRS reports on presentment and discovering "midnight on the closing of the day" as another linguistic solution to "what does midnight mean in various legislative contexts?"

(cc @BBKogan)

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

Taxidermied animal content is a surprisingly recurrent class of Capitol Hill content.

[Bill Clark @billclarkphotos]

Marty the Moose and Kodak the Bear arrive in @SenatorShaheen’s office in preparation for tomorrow’s Experience New Hampshire event on Capitol Hill.

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

Being taken off the floor for a chat by the parliamentarian is somehow simultaneously my worst nightmare and a bucket list item.

[Jamie Dupree @jamiedupree]

Tillis & Cassidy hand off papers to the Senate Parliamentarian, who then takes them off the floor for a chat

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

I saw this and was momentarily but profoundly confused about what year it was.

[Burgess Everett @burgessev]

Hmm, Sinema is on the Senate floor talking to Sen. Coons right now

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

@JNicholsonInDC OBBBA was generated by the FY25 resolution. Reconciliation 2.0 is being generated by the FY26 resolution. You'd still have an FY27 resolution available for 3.0 without having to wait until after Oct. 1.

(TBC, that doesn't touch the politics of 3.0, just the bites at the apple Q)

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

The rules are not magic and the parliamentarian is not a wizard. Neither can force agreement where agreement does not exist.

[Jordain Carney @jordainc]

Update: Senate Republicans are preparing to strip out the Secret Service provision, according to four people

No final announcement yet -- and Rs will meet for lunch soon so maybe they pull something off last minute-- but expected plan is an acknowledgement that they don't have the votes, as we reported

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

@jdalrymple_esq I've been assuming that was a conference management choice: either go narrow and be able to tell everyone who has other asks "sorry, we're only doing these two committees" or add more committees and risk the whole thing falling apart under competing demands.

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

"What in the world does 'merely incidental' mean?" gets all the attention but it's the jurisdictional foot faults that will get you every time.

[Bobby Kogan @BBKogan]

New Byrd bath results: Senate Judiciary & Budget Ds successfully argue that the ballroom provision violates the 3rd prong of the Byrd rule — having matter outside of the Judiciary Committee’s jurisdiction

This is fixable, but only if Rs *severely* curtail the money’s flexibility

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

This is, in part, Byrd Rule-related, and in part because they only need 51 votes. Most importantly, it's another reminder of the consequences of expanding the set of activities addressed via reconciliation rather than the appropriations process.

[Kevin McNellis @kevin_mcnellis]

The most interesting aspect of the new reconciliation bill text is what is *not* included. Neither HSGAC or Judiciary included any of the riders that typically accompany ICE's annual appropriations. (1/2)

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

There are other reasons to want to return to the so-called “regular order” but there are reasons why omnibuses have become so prevalent.

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

One lesson we should all take away from the experience of the FY26 DHS appropriations bill is that doing the bills one at a time can mean that each one is vulnerable to the particular politics of what it covers. You can’t leverage logrolls across issues in the same way.

[Molly Reynolds @mollyereynolds]

@MattGlassman312 this is the first line to the first song of the hamilton-style musical about the 119th congress that none of us knew we needed until right now.