The House and Senate are in session this week. The House will consider
12 bills
under suspension of the rules, including the Small Business Development Centers Improvement Act of 2019 (H.R. 4406), which reauthorizes the SBCD program at $175 million annually through FY 2023. For the remainder of the week, the House will vote on the Corporate Transparency Act of 2019 (H.R. 2513), which requires shell companies and similar entities to disclose their true beneficial owners; and the Stopping Harmful Interference in Elections for a Lasting Democracy (SHIELD) Act (H.R. 4617), which closes loopholes that allow foreign spending in U.S. elections, boosts disclosure and transparency requirements, and creates a duty to report illicit offers of campaign assistance from foreign nations or governments. House votes are cancelled on Thursday to allow for a service in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol for the late House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD), who died on Oct. 17; he will lie in state for the remainder of Thursday, with a funeral taking place in Baltimore on Friday.
The Senate will ratify a treaty to designate the Republic of Macedonia as a member of NATO and will consider the nomination of Andrew Bremberg to be U.S. Representative to the Office of the United Nations in Geneva. The Senate will then consider two FY 2020 minibus appropriations packages: the first will likely consist of the Commerce-Justice-Science, Agriculture-Rural Development, Interior-Environment, Military Construction-VA, and Transportation-HUD Appropriations bills; the second package will likely consist of the FY 2020 Defense, Labor-HHS-Education, State-Foreign Operations, and Energy-Water Development Appropriations bills. Senate Democrats may also force votes this week and the week of Oct. 28 to nullify two Trump Administration rules under the Congressional Review Act: the first resolution would roll back the Trump Administration's rule greenlighting skimpier health care plans that do not meet the standards of the Affordable Care Act; the second resolution would hit back at IRS regulations preventing state and local workarounds to part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which put a $10,000 ceiling on the federal tax deduction for State and Local Taxes (SALT), a limit that has largely affected taxpayers in New York, New Jersey and California, along with a few other states.
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