Capitol Hill Buzz: Time and Speaker Ryan waits for no one

“That’s a project Majority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledges is not going to titillate the public”.

Rep. Paul Ryan, the House speaker, scuttled a vote on Iran sanctions to punish tardy lawmakers.

“But I think it sort of degrades the presidency to then talk about primary politics in the other party, during primaries. And that means that we have a conservative set of philosophies and principles that give us policies that actually should be inclusive and appealing to people, and I believe what Nikki Haley did was go out and win converts to conservatism”.

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said a budget resolution could come to the House floor as soon as next month, which would be considerably earlier than the typical appropriations cycle. But it’s become standard practice for the House to keep a vote open much longer, especially the first vote of the day, allowing stragglers to vote and keeping more timely colleagues waiting. Obama says the bill’s provisions effectively re-litigate the Iran nuclear deal, which the Congress failed to kill past year. “Obviously we’re talking to our members right now”. On Wednesday, he made good on his threat. Senate Democrats, looking to seize on the division, have threatened to call for a vote on the politically toxic idea on the Senate floor.

“Our members are making that decision this weekend”, Scalise said.

The retreat comes after the two top Republican leaders on Capitol Hill had in recent comments staked out opposing perspectives on the year ahead: Ryan has been vocal in his desire to use the House as a policy shop to develop a core GOP agenda before a presidential candidate is formally nominated.

“I have tried to avoid turning the Senate into a studio for the presidential campaign”, McConnell said when asked about the suggestion of a vote.

McConnell and other Senate leaders don’t disagree and in fact applaud Ryan’s program.

The House technically passed a bill on Wednesday imposing new sanctions on Iran, something many House Republicans critical of the Obama Administration were eager to do.

The question lingering overhead, however, is exactly who will secure the Republican nomination amidst this crowded field and will that person even see eye-to-eye on the agenda formulated from Republicans in Congress. The rhetoric coming from Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Their articles take you inside the halls of Congress, and cover the spectrum of policy issues being introduced, debated and voted on there.

McConnell responded Thursday by saying “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander” and that Democrats “could expect amendments that they might not like related to the Sanders or Clinton campaign”, referring to Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.