Scheduling

The House Financial Services Committee next week will hold a hearing on legislation that would prohibit members of Congress from making stock, swaps and commodity trades based on nonpublic information they are exposed to while doing their jobs.

The hearing comes as interest in the legislation is growing, after a November "60 Minutes" story that alleged some House members were profiting from the knowledge they gain on the job.

The House meets at 9 a.m. Friday to consider the latest in a series of bills that seek to mitigate the impact of regulations on companies — H.R. 3010, the Regulatory Accountability Act.

This bill would reform the Administrative Procedure Act to expand the requirements of federal agencies to base rules on evidence, consider less intrusive alternatives, and weigh costs and benefits more carefully.

The House will remain in session the week of Dec. 12, one week longer than its original schedule. 

The House meets at noon to take up two bills, including one that would end taxpayer financing of presidential campaigns and the Election Assistance Commission. This bill, H.R. 3463, will be considered under a closed rule, which means no amendments will be considered.

The second bill, H.R. 527, would require more detailed assessments of how federal regulations affect small businesses. A single rule for both bills was approved Wednesday night.

The House returns for its first full day of work since the Thanksgiving break, and aside from advancing several GOP priorities such as those regarding union elections and deregulation, members will approve a resolution honoring a slain staffer to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), Gabriel Zimmerman.

The resolution, H.Res. 364, will name HVC 215 of the Capitol Visitor Center as the Gabriel Zimmerman Meeting Room. The resolution will get 40 minutes of debate, and will need a two-thirds majority vote for passage under a suspension of House rules — no hurdle at all for a bill that will likely pass unanimously.

The Senate returns Tuesday at 10 a.m. to continue work on S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012.

Before adjourning Monday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) set up a vote on a bipartisan amendment to the bill that would sanction entities doing business with the Central Bank of Iran. There are about 100 other pending amendments, and senators warned on Monday that there is only time to consider so many of these before a planned final vote on Thursday.

The Senate meets at 1 p.m. Monday to continue debate on S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act. So far there is no clear way forward on how to proceed on the bill, which now has 270 amendments pending.

By 5 p.m., the Senate is expected to take up the nomination of Chris Droney of Connecticut to be U.S. circuit judge for the Second Circuit.

The House is not in session Monday; it will return at 2 p.m. Tuesday to consider suspension bills.

The failure of the tragically mislabeled supercommittee leaves a host of unanswered questions about how the remainder of the year will proceed.

How will Congress handle things like tax extenders and pressure to extend unemployment insurance? What's the plan for passing the next stopgap spending measure, which is needed by December 16? How will Republican pressure to avoid cuts in planned defense spending manifest itself in the coming weeks?

If the schedule for next week is any guide, none of these burning questions will be answered on the floor of the House and Senate.

The Senate and House adjourned Friday afternoon after some worries that pending business and the supercommittee report would drive work into next week, which was planned as a recess for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Still, both chambers worked into Friday afternoon to wrap up pending business and prepare for a flurry of end-of-the-year legislative work slated for late November and December.

The House meets at 9 a.m. Friday to resume debate on the balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, and will hold a vote on final passage before adjourning.

If Thursday’s debate was any guide, most Democrats will oppose the amendment, H.J.Res. 2, along with a small number of Republicans, which might not leave enough supporters to get the 290 votes needed for House passage. The proposal has more than a dozen Democratic co-sponsors, but as Republicans have noted, they’ll need about 50 Democrats to support it.