WASHINGTON (DTN) — Further House consideration of the fiscal year 2015 Agriculture appropriations bill has been postponed until at least the week of June 23 because House Republicans are so involved in selecting new leaders, but the Senate will take up its version of the bill this week.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., lost his primary on Tuesday, and has resigned effective July 31. House Republicans have set next Thursday, June 19, as the election date for new leadership.
“The machinery of the House is on pause,” a senior GOP aide told DTN Thursday. “The whip operation is for the majority leader's race. Anything [legislation] that needs a whip operation is being postponed until after the election [of House leaders],” the aide told DTN.
The Senate has decided to go ahead with its plans to consider its version of the bill this week, a Senate Appropriations Committee aide said late Thursday. That bill appears likely to be considered with other legislation in what is known as a “minibus.”
The House voted on some amendments to the Agriculture bill on Wednesday, but then stopped action on it.
Democrats in the House are expected to propose an amendment to strike a provision that would require the Agriculture Department to grant a waiver from healthier meal rules to any school that says it has been losing money in its lunch program for six months.
Nutritionists and Democrats are working hard to gain support to strike that provision. Maintaining the waiver provision would require a whip operation.
The race to succeed Cantor is expected to pit House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., currently the third-ranking Republican, against House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Reps. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and Tom Price, R-Ga., have dropped out of the race, the Journal said.
But if McCarthy moves up to majority leader, that sets up a race for majority whip. McCarthy's deputy, Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., is dueling Republican Study Committee Chairman Steve Scalise, R-La., for that role, the Journal said.
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Posted with DTN Permission by Haylie Shipp
