Yes, this is a typo but for the record, I absolutely do consider GAO Appropriations Law Volume III to be revolving fun.

You would think this would mean there are no more ads re the referendum running during the Nationals game. You would be wrong.

I've genuinely contemplated using season 1 or 3 (on the Big Dig and the New England fishing industry, respectively) as the basis for a semester-long policy process class. (no shade towards season 2, on the Massachusetts state lottery; everyone should listen to that one too!)

I have been shouting with only moderate degrees of coherence about this very point so you should all read @mattglassman312.bsky.social's cogent written version. The erosion of the division between mandatory and discretionary $$ is, in short, an extremely big deal.

If hours staring at lists of members of Congress is good for anything, it's that it allows me to remind you of this: Tony Gonzales: GOP congressman from Texas, resigning now Anthony Gonzalez: *different* Republican congressman, served from Ohio until 2023

If you are a person who wrote me a very polite email at any point in the last year asking when new Vital Statistics on Congress data was coming (you know who you are), today is your lucky day!

I assume everyone paying attention to the Senate's current extended debate experience has something they're watching out for. For me, it's whether anyone does something as funny as when Booker talked about how mad he is about the giant picture of Mark Kelly at Newark Airport.

An imperfect solution to something that should never have been a problem. But there's something fitting about the fact that this went up at the hands of AOC employees who simply showed up to do their jobs today, just as the folks it honors did on Jan. 6. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

First twin-to-twin succession, but not the first sibling-to-sibling one. That happened with the Fitzpatricks in the House in 2016 and JFK-to-Ted Kennedy in the Senate.

Ways having lived in southeast Michigan for six years unexpectedly prepared me for the last 2+ weeks in D.C., a brief thread.

For all the reasons you are thinking of (and maybe some you're not), this has been a HARD year for many people who live in Washington. That's making the decision to gut the parts of the Post (metro, sports) that cover the region as a place that people *live* extra hard to take.

Per Judge Cobb's order granting the congressional plaintiffs' TRO in the case involving access for oversight of ICE facilities, turns out I was not the only one with questions about the plausibility of the government's claim. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Since @bbkogan.bsky.social solved my longstanding linguistic problem of how to describe when a funding measure expires last fall ("midnight as Saturday begins"), I can now focus all of my pedantic energy on the difference between a lapse in appropriations and a shutdown.

We lost one of our most treasured colleagues in Governance Studies at @brookings.edu, Steve Hess, this past weekend. His work over five decades was wide-ranging and sharp, and he was relentlessly kind, demonstrating care for every member of our team. We will miss him. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/21/u...

The placeholder bill + rule + related discharge petition remains one of the more interesting procedural innovations of last two congresses.

It's the first legislative week of the year, and the House AND the Senate have both seen successful motions to discharge a committee. The 119th Congress, everyone.

Five years ago today, many people simply woke up on January 6, 2021 and went to work in and around the Capitol to serve their country in ways big and small, only to be met with violence. Their stories are many, and they are still with me.

Given that David Valadao, the only other remaining House Republican to vote for impeachment in 2021, is sitting in one of the seats targeted by California's redistricting efforts, there may be zero such members come 2027.

It’s not just that the number of filed discharge petitions is up this year (though it is; see below).

I'd also note that one lesson from 2025 vs. 2017 is that the politics of a narrower (in this case, health-focused) reconciliation bill are potentially trickier than a big (beautiful or otherwise) one. There's just one hill on which you win or lose, not a bunch of different hills you can choose from.

I wish I could take credit for the phrase "new heights of flouting" but that came from the team at @theunpopulist.net who gave me the space for this take on the current landscape of congressional vs. executive power over spending. www.theunpopulist.net/p/founders-w...

If you are a person who judges the quality of a book by how many random historical documents and rabbit holes it involves (and why would you judge a book in any other way?), I can personally attest, based on watching Vanessa write it, that this is the book for you.

It's the Comet of the CR cloture motions.

If this night doesn't include Steve Kornacki returning to his NJ politics reporter roots and pulling out some deep cuts on Jim McGreevey as he runs for Jersey City mayor, why am I even still a Peacock subscriber.

It feels unfair that to break the record *for an Oregonian specifically*, Merkley is going to have to give a longer speech than one that set the overall record when it was given. (Also this whole Merkley episode has been weirdly low-key by marathon speech standards and I'm not really sure why.)

The executive branch not spending the money that Congress has told them to spend is bad. The executive branch spending money on things for which Congress has not given them money is also bad (and, arguably, worse).

If you're trying to make sense of the legal landscape of the moment (RIFs and otherwise), Sam and @nicholasbednar.bsky.social helped me understand it and I bet they can help you too.

Find me when Collins's talking stick appears.

On Lawfare Daily, @mollyereynolds.bsky.social spoke to @nicholasbednar.bsky.social and Sam Berger about how the Trump administration is using this government shutdown to pursue RIFs and how to think about the shutdown in the broader context of the Trump administration’s exercise of executive power.

Will admit that, in the *extremely* large number of hours I spent thinking about pandemic-era congressional operations between 2020 and 2022, "if one lies during testimony delivered remotely, where is one possibly indicted?" did not cross my mind.

No prediction, but here's the big tension imo: 1. Dems are facing pressure to "fight" for the sake of "fighting" in a way that is newer to them than to the GOP. 2. A shutdown is at odds with one of the core reasons someone becomes a congressional Democrat: government should work and do things.

One unexpected consequence of the Senate's recent changes vis-a-vis nominations? The absolute number it has done on the vote page on senate dot gov. So much more scrolling!

Knowing that the Senate lost some official papers in mid-2020 makes me feel better about any number of things my brain failed at during that year.

🟣11 New from @mollyereynolds.bsky.social @brookings.edu — "When It Comes to Its Spending Power, Congress Must Save Itself" Part of the Democracy Project’s @nyulaw.bsky.social w.bsky.social 100 Ideas in 100 Days series Read the full essay 👉

Good morning to everyone but mostly to the person who designed this pop-up that greets you on the House Appropriations Committee Democrats' web site.

Each year on this day, I return to this, and while it hits a little differently from one year to the next, I still feel this deeply each time. "I am only humbled: to be here, to be alive." www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/wel...

I am once again reminding you that behind so many stories you see about D.C. is a real city full of real people just trying to live regular lives and not simply a platform on which things happen. www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

The "we should have more younger members of Congress" conversation isn't just about things like whether committee chair term limits choke off paths to power. It's also about things like this.

On Lawfare Daily, @mollyereynolds.bsky.social, Zach Price, and Philip Wallach discuss pocket rescissions as an approach to cancelling funds previously approved by Congress. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/lawf...

If you need some pre-Labor Day weekend reading on pocket rescissions (and who doesn't), I have the list for you! You can start with GAO itself, which cuts to the chase with "Are pocket rescissions legal? No." www.gao.gov/blog/what-po...

If you are interested in learning about pocket rescissions (and I do believe there are...at least some of you), it's been a great 24 hours for new content. We've got (1) @bbkogan.bsky.social www.americanprogress.org/article/what...

Read this for the extremely important substance but please also check out the truly captivating photo of circa 1962 BLS employees generating graphs by hand that accompanies it.

16 votes over 3-5 hours on a Friday when everyone was hoping to have recessed already is a recipe for a room of full of people in really excellent moods.

Quiet part out loud, "why do congressional leaders like packaging spending bills together?" edition.

This is going to end up being about whether individual members of Congress have standing to sue and over what but this is a textbook limitation rider that the administration appears to be violating, and ignoring riders (spending $$ on things you've been told not to spend $$ on) is also a big deal.

This--from an amicus brief filed by 157 Members of Congress in one of the lawsuits against OMB's freeze on various federal funds--hits the institutional nail on the head. You cannot legislative effectively if you have no reason to believe that the executive branch will implement your choices.

Well friends, we've reached double exclamation point territory from Judge Sullivan. (From a minute order denying the government's motion for a stay pending appeal in the suit brought by CREW and Protect Democracy against OMB for taking down the legally required apportionment database).

This is like halfway to my greatest hits album.

Today @lawfaremedia.org has published two of my very favorite kind of thing: a very smart person who shares some object of my obsession but knows way more than I do explains it. First, @nicholasbednar.bsky.social's riff on RIFs: www.lawfaremedia.org/article/redu...

Today's edition of "quiet parts out loud":