Below is this week’s congressional update by BakerHostetler’s Federal Policy team. We’ll continue to post in weeks when both chambers of Congress are in session.
HEADLINES
- Congress returns for its lame-duck session, with several uncalled House elections leaving the chamber’s majority in the 118th Congress uncertain.
- The Republican Party faces a reckoning this week, after badly underperforming expectations in the midterm elections, with former President Donald Trump expected to announce a 2024 bid tomorrow.
- President Joe Biden is participating in the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Bali, Indonesia, including a meeting with China’s Xi Jinping.
HOUSE
- The House will be in session tonight through Friday, with an agenda including bipartisan legislation aiming to protect sexual assault victims from nondisclosure agreements.
- House Republicans will hold leadership elections tomorrow, amid uncertainty over whether they will be in the majority – and uncertainty whether presumptive speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., can quell a rebellion after a disastrous election for his party.
- Newly elected House members – including some candidates whose election outcomes remain undecided – are in Washington for orientation.
- The committee hearing schedule can be found here.
SENATE
- The Senate will reconvene with consideration of Biden’s judicial nominees.
- Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and his allies are also working to hold down a challenge to his leadership.
- Senate Democrats are jubilant after Saturday’s projection that their most vulnerable incumbent, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., won reelection, clinching their majority for two more years.
- The Senate committee meeting schedule can be found here.
WHITE HOUSE
- Biden is in Bali for the G20 Leaders Summit, beginning the final leg of his trip to Egypt, Cambodia, and Indonesia.
- Today’s agenda includes Biden and Xi’s first face-to-face meeting as leaders of their respective countries amid tense relations between the superpowers.
- As the president returns, Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Bangkok, Thailand, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders Meeting before concluding her trip in the Philippines.
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