Schedule for Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Following any Leader remarks, the Senate will be in a period of morning business for 1 hour with the time equally divided, and with the Democrats controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling the final half.

Following morning business, we expect the Republicans will move to go to conference on the Senate budget resolution. Once the compound motion to go to conference is made, there  would be 1 hour for debate on the motion. We expect a roll call vote on the compound motion to go to conference on the budget resolution in the 11:45am range. There would then be up to an additional 9 hours for debate equally divided (1 of the 10 statutory hours would have been used prior to the vote). Upon the use or yielding back of time, motions to instruct conferees would be in order. Therefore, we expect a mini vote-a-rama (hopefully only in the 9 to low double digit vote range) in the late afternoon or early evening (depending on how much debate time is required-maybe in the 5pm range).

The Senate will recess from 12:30 until 2:00pm for the bipartisan luncheon. At 2:49pm, the Senate will observe a moment of silence in honor of the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings.

As a reminder, this evening, following passage of H.R.2, the Senate resumed consideration of S.178, Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015. Senator Portman withdrew his pending amendments (SA #271 and SA #270) and the Vitter second degree SA #284 fell. Senator McConnell then offered Cornyn amendment #1120 (Hyde) and filed cloture on the Cornyn amendment. The Cornyn amendment #1120 is now the only pending amendment to the bill. Unless an agreement can be reached, the cloture vote would occur one hour after the Senate convenes on Thursday, April 16. The filing deadline for second degree amendments to the Cornyn amendment is 1 hour prior to the cloture vote.