Tuesday: Insider trading in the Senate, CLASS Act in the House

By Pete Kasperowicz - 01/31/12 09:39 AM ET

The Senate meets at 10 a.m. for speeches, then at 11:30 a.m. will begin consideration of S. 2038, the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act.

The Senate on Monday evening voted to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the bill, by a 93-2 vote. At 11:30 a.m. today, all time will be yielded back and the Senate will adopt the motion to proceed, which will allow the Senate to continue working on the bill this week.

Senate Democrats appear eager to advance the STOCK Act — which is aimed at preventing members of Congress from using non-public information to make stock trades for their own personal benefit — in order to show that House Republicans are less supportive of the bill. House Republicans have said they want more time for various committees to assess the best way forward on the bill.

Senate Democrats on Monday implied that they needed to schedule several procedural votes on the bill because of Republican opposition, although only two Republicans voted against the bill yesterday.

The House meets at noon today for speeches and then at 2 p.m. to consider two items. The first is a motion to go to conference on H.R. 658, the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act.

Republicans and Democrats got closer to reaching a multi-year FAA funding extension in the last few weeks, and this conference is expected to let them finish that work.

A second vote is expected today on the rule for H.R. 1173, the Fiscal Responsibility and Retirement Security Act. This bill would repeal a portion of the 2010 healthcare law called the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) program, a voluntary long-term healthcare program.

The Obama administration said last year that it can't see how to make this program financially viable, but Democrats are still expected to oppose the GOP effort to formally repeal it.