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On January 4th the new, 110th Congress will convene. Here is a quick Q&A on the make-up of the new Congress, and what we might expect to see when is begins its work next year. Q: What are the demographics of the 110th Congress? A: Democrats took control of both the House and Senate in the November elections, but the majority is narrow, particularly in the Senate, where the partisan breakdown is 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and two Independents who plan to Caucus with the Democrats. The Senate will have 16 women members (the most to ever serve in a single session) and there will be only one African American, one Asian Pacific American, and 2 Hispanics serving in the Senate. In the House, the partisan balance stands at 233 Democrats and 202 Republicans. The House will include 71 Female Representatives (including the first ever woman speaker of the House), 42 African-Americans (including two non-voting delegates), 28 Hispanics, 4 Asian & Pacific Islanders, and 1 Native American. Q: What happens to the bills that weren’t passed in the 109th Congress? A: With the close of the 109th Congress, all bills that were not enacted "died" and will need to be reintroduced and assigned new bill numbers in the 110th Congress. Q: What issues can we expect the 110th Congress to take up? A: Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has announced her agenda for the first 100 hours of the House session (in order): establish new House ethics and lobbying rules that would "clean up Congress" and "break the link between lobbyists and legislation," "implement recommendations of the independent, bipartisan 9/11 Commission", increase the minimum wage, cut interest rates on student loans, allow the government to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies for lower Medicare drug prices, broaden the types of stem cell research allowed with federal funds, and establishing "pay as you go" rules that would not allow increases in the federal deficit. The 110th Congress will also be left with some important appropriations work, as the 109th Congress passed only two FY07 spending bills, Defense and Homeland Security measures. On December 12, Democrats announced plans to enact a long-term continuing resolution (CR) that would extend 2006 funding levels for all of the remaining programs through 2007 instead of attempting to pass the leftover 2007 domestic spending bills. As they look to Appropriations for 2008, Democrats have announced plans for a moratorium on all earmarks until reforms have been put in place. An earmark is designated spending on a specific project, institution or activity at the request of an individual member of Congress, usually to benefit their constituency. In 2005 there were 15,000 earmarks in the federal budget, costing $47 billion. In addition, ANA will be closely watching expected movement on some important health care-related programs that are up for re-authorization this year, including the Nurse Reinvestment Act and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). |