Scheduling

The House returns Thursday morning with the heavy task of passing a budget for fiscal 2011, and beginning consideration of the 2012 budget resolution.

On the current year budget, the House passed the rule for this bill on Wednesday, and will debate the bill, H.R. 1473, for one hour before voting.

The House will also debate and vote on two resolutions: one that would amend the spending bill to defund the healthcare law, and another that would amend the bill to block federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Wednesday morning urged his Democratic colleagues to vote against a rule, H.R. 1473, allowing consideration of a spending bill for the remainder of fiscal 2012.

In his morning whip notice, Hoyer's office said the rule allows for consideration of two healthcare amendments: one that would defund ObamaCare, and one that would eliminate a federal prevention and public health program.

"Despite Republicans’ insistence that negotiations involving a full-year continuing resolution were strictly about numbers, they have injected these issues back into the debate and have allowed for consideration of these two unrelated issues," the notice said. "Democrats are urged to VOTE NO on the Rule."

The House opens at 10 a.m. for morning speeches, then returns at noon to begin consideration of the fiscal 2011 spending bill. Members on Wednesday will debate and vote on the rule for the full-year spending bill, H.R. 1473, and then plan to debate and vote on the bill itself on Thursday.

The rule considered today also allows separate votes on two amendments to H.R. 1473 that would defund last year's healthcare law and block federal funding for Planned Parenthood. But even if the House approves these amendments, they will not take effect unless the Senate approves them, and that is not expected to happen.

The House Rules Committee on Tuesday night outlined the rule it approved for passing the full FY 2011 spending bill, H.R. 1473, and two controversial healthcare resolutions. Here's how it will work according to the rule approved Tuesday:

The rule calls for debate and vote on the main bill along with two healthcare resolutions that would amend the main bill. The resolutions would defund healthcare reform and block federal funding of Planned Parenthood. No amendments will be permitted on any of these bills, and the House plans to start considering them on Thursday.

Assuming the House approves all three, the House will then send them to the Senate. While the two healthcare resolutions would "correct" H.R. 1473 and in fact amend that bill, they will only do so if the Senate approves them as well. Therefore, if they fail to pass the Senate (and they are not expected to), Congress will send an unamended H.R. 1473 to President Obama for signature.

The Rules Committee said winning the right for votes on the healthcare amendments in both the House and Senate was a condition of the agreement reached by House Republicans, Senate Democrats and the White House late last Friday.

The House Rules Committee at 5 p.m. Tuesday will meet to approve rules for several bills, including two resolutions aimed at defunding last year's healthcare law and Planned Parenthood. The panel will also attend to the FY 2011 spending bill, which the House will now consider on Thursday, not Wednesday as originally planned.

Rules will consider all three of these bills on an "emergency" basis, meaning the committee is giving short notice of the meeting.

Tuesday could give House members a chance to vent over Republican spending plans, in particular plans to vote this week to defund Planned Parenthood and last year's healthcare law. But the serious work on spending bills will wait until later in the week.

The House returns Tuesday at noon for morning debate, and then at 2 p.m. takes up two non-controversial bills under a suspension of House rules.

The first is H.R. 1308, which would extend the duration of the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission Act. The second is S. 307, which names a West Virginia courthouse.

The Senate returns at 10 a.m. to consider two district judgeships.

Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.) said that by late Monday evening, he expects to see the text of FY 2011 budget legislation that is based on last week's late agreement between Congress and the White House.

Campbell added in his "laptop report" Monday that he intends to support the full-year FY 2011 spending bill because he believes a $38 billion cut is "probably as good a deal as John Boehner could get."

The House returns at 11 p.m. Monday night to file the bill, which will allow House Republicans to take up the bill on Wednesday. Under rules passed earlier this year, Republicans said they would make all bills public for three days before voting on them.

Monday is sort of the calm before the storm and after the storm all at once. After late-night heroics on Friday to keep the government running, the Senate is out today, and the House returns for a pro forma session at 11 p.m.

Then, the battle begins anew. At some point, legislative language for a bill funding the rest of FY 2011 along the lines of the House-Senate-White House agreement will be introduced, and the House plans to pass it on Wednesday. The Senate should be ready to take that bill up Thursday.

But also on Thursday, the House will consider a controversial budget resolution for FY 2012. More details can be found here, in our week-ahead roundup.

The House, Senate and White House narrowly escaped a government shutdown by passing a one-week spending stopgap early Saturday morning (text here, summary here), and agreeing to the outlines of a spending agreement for the rest of FY 2011. While there's always a chance the devil shows up in the details the two parties are hammering out, the federal government finally seems to be working in concert, and next week is expected to conclude all debate on a FY 2011 spending bill.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said just before 11 p.m. that Congress would pass a short-term continuing resolution Friday night to ensure the federal government stays open, and would pass a longer term agreement for the rest of FY 2011 next week.

"I expect that the House will vote… tonight on a short-term continuing resolution into next week to allow for time for this agreement to be put together in legislative form and brought to the floor of the House and Senate for a vote," Boehner said in brief comments.

"And so I would expect the final vote on this to occur mid-next week, but I do believe that we'll have what we'll call a bridge continuing resolution passed tonight to ensure that government's open."