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In Rebecca Shabad
WASHINGTON – When convening the 116th Congress, Democrats will for the first time in eight years have the power to determine the order of the House Day, while Republicans in the Senate will have the power to protect President Donald Trump: it will depend on them for his judicial candidates, his choices in Cabinet, or even for his tenure in the office him -even.
the new session of January 3, in which the House must hold the vote in the formal chamber, should elect for the second time Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, for the second time.
Pass from a majority of 236-197 GOP to a 235-199 Democratic advantage, an oscillation of 40 seats. In the Senate, Republicans – who had struggled to get a majority as thin as 51-49 – will operate with a slightly more comfortable margin between 53 and 47.
If the Democrats of Trump and Hill fail to reach an agreement, week on the financing of the border wall, the first big task of the new session will involve the latest work of the last: adopt the remaining spending measures to end the partial closure of the government.
Here are other actions to watch from next week:
The Democratic Agenda
House Democrats said their agenda for the New Year will include cost reduction. on prescription drugs, the adoption of an ethics reform, the protection of Obamacare and the creation of a set of infrastructure.
The first bill that they plan to introduce is HR 1, which aims to update the law on the right to vote in order to facilitate the voting process. Disclose their tax returns and encourage states to adopt, among other things, public campaign finance systems.
The Republican's More Comfortable Senate Advantage and Control of the White House mean that major democratic priorities are unlikely to go far beyond the Capitol – but the leadership is determined to give members more candidates in 2020 than the presidential watch.
Trump's Income Tax Returns
The Democrats, however, have a long list of Trump's tasks to watch for, supplemented by an important task: getting the president's tax returns.
Ways and Means is one of three congressional committees having the power to seek out Trump's tax returns, which he has refused to disclose since. his presidential campaign because he claims that he is under the control of the IRS. The Senate Finance Committee and the Joint Committee on Taxation are the other two groups entitled to request a person's tax returns under the tax code.
Pelosi recently reiterated that it would be up to the Ways and Means Committee to be chaired by Representative Richard Neal, D-Mass, to decide whether or not to request Trump's returns.
Neal could submit a written request to the IRS to provide the information. If the Treasury Department were to deny it, Democrats in the House should decide whether to pursue tax returns legally. If they are obtained, the chairperson will have to designate the group members as "agents" responsible for reading the statements. They will then vote to make the documents public and report back to the House as a whole.
Trump Administration Inquiries
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee and the Committee on Parliamentary Oversight and Government Reform are already interested in a few issues. point out and continue during the first 100 days of the new session, areas in which they sought answers under Republican control, but received no response.
Rep. Jerry Nadler, DN.Y., the future chairman of the Judiciary Committee, plans to focus on areas such as the separation of families at the border, the right to vote, the refusal of the Justice Department to defend Obamacare, the hate crimes involving white supremacists and minority oversight
The next President of the Observatory, Elijah Cummings, D-Md., has already warned at the end of December. He sent 51 letters to the White House, many federal agencies and others, to fully comply by January 11. 2019 with requests for previous documents from members of the Republican Oversight Committee on many topics.
"Many of these requests were bipartite and some are now more than a year old," he said. "As the Democrats prepare to take the reins of Congress, we insist – as a first fundamental step – that the Trump administration and others abide by these Republican demands."
Rep. Eliot Engel, DN.Y., the new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in December that he was planning to hold "hearings after the start of the year on all of aspects of Saudi behavior ".
Investigation of Russia
Democrats in the House are considering pursuing a law that would protect the special advocate Robert Mueller and the investigation that he leads into Russian interference in the country. Election of 2016, said Daniel Schwarz, Nadler's assistant to the Judiciary Committee. Republicans blocked a bill on Mueller's protection in the Senate in November, at the initiative of Democrats and several GOP deputies.
Even if a bill on Mueller's protection was to be passed in the House, it would face a soaring Senate, where previous attempts Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
House Republicans said after an investigation into Russia's interference that there was no evidence of collusion between Trump's associates and Russia during the election , Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Specified that he still had questions to ask.
The Senate investigation into the interferences of Russia is still ongoing. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr told NBC News earlier this year that his investigation would leak in 2019, with the panel now examining the problem of collusion, the last part of its five-part investigation .
Burr told Bloomberg News in November that his committee could take up to six months after the end of their talks to write and declassify a final report.
The Republican Agenda
Senate Republicans will still have the power to confirm candidates for the Conservative judiciary, including Supreme Court choices if another opening came up. They will also have to spend the first half of the year holding confirmation hearings for new Cabinet candidates, including William Barr, the choice of Trump's Attorney General. Then there is the next candidate for Secretary of the Interior, whom Trump has not yet chosen; Andrew Wheeler, his candidate for the position of chief of the EPA; and State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert to serve as ambassador to the United Nations.
Democrat House leaders have shown little interest in launching an impeachment action against President Trump – in part because Republican Senate defections are considered improbable. If the House were effectively removed from office, the Senate's GpP would be the last line of defense of the Speaker.
McConnell has not yet set any other specific goals for next year, but the new House Leader, Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. , mentioned some areas on which his caucus plans to focus under a Democratic majority – including making permanent tax cuts, securing military pay increases, fighting the opioid epidemic and attacking it. to the national debt – but life in the minority is the only problem on the list The priorities of both parties are harmonized.
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