Monday: Government shutdown enters second week

In the meantime, the House will continue pressing Democrats to approve funding for the government one bill at a time. GOP leaders have already passed bills funding national parks, medical research, federal disaster aid, food aid for poor families and the District of Columbia.

{mosads}These so-called “piecemeal” bills have been ignored by the Senate so far. But they are keeping the House busy, in contrast to the Senate, which has largely held non-legislative debate during the past week.

Each of these House bills has garnered the support of a few dozen Democrats, showing there is some support among members of the party to fill some of the government service holes created by the shutdown.

That tension will continue into this week, as the GOP has at least eight more “mini” spending bills that it can call up. These bills deal with everything from funding the government’s nuclear weapons security activities to intelligence operations and border security.

However, the shutdown has completely upended the ability to predict congressional activity with any precision beyond a day or two. This is especially true in the House, where GOP leaders have stopped issuing weekly expectations and resorted to putting out information one day at a time.

The Senate has responded to the shutdown by doing almost nothing, at least so far. The Senate has approved just a few bills by unanimous consent, but has not held a roll-call vote in a week. In addition, most members have stopped even introducing legislation.

Here’s what we know so far about Monday:

The House starts at noon, and after a series of speeches it will start work on H.J.Res. 77, the Food and Drug Safety Act. This resolution funds the FDA through mid-December.

Under the rule approved last week, this resolution will be debated for 40 minutes, after which the House will likely pass it, and likely with some Democratic support.

If a roll-call vote is needed or requested, it will take place at 6:30 p.m.

The Senate starts at 2 p.m., and at 5 p.m. it will debate two judicial nominees. They are Colin Bruce and Sara Ellis, who have both been nominated to be district judges in Illinois.

A vote on these nominees is expected at 5:30 p.m.