The growing demand to make significant reforms and changes to federal criminal justice laws gathered a powerful head of steam last week after a major effort by President Obama and a number of bipartisan congressional comments. There is a growing consensus starting with the President and including Republicans, Democrats, liberals and conservatives to address the
On Thursday, July 16, the Senate approved a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secretary Education Act, S 1177 (ESEA/No Child Left behind Act) by a vote of 81 to 17 sending it on to the next phase of the process and maybe the most difficult phase. The House passed their education bill, HR 5, and
While much of children’s and child welfare programs were level in funding there were some key targets and cuts. This included the Senate elimination of the Abandoned Infants funding (zeroed out all $11 million) and both the House and Senate made severe cuts to teen pregnancy prevention. See budget chart here. The Administration in their
Last week was a historic week for the U.S. Supreme Court and on Thursday June 25, the Supreme Court issued one of its most anticipated decisions of the term with a 6 to 3 rejection of the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act. The Court in King V Burwell rejected the challenge by the
Last week both houses moved on an appropriations bill for the departments of HHS, Education and Labor. The House Appropriations Committee moved the bill that had been approved by the Subcommittee a week earlier while in the Senate the Subcommittee and then the full Committee acted on their version of a bill on Tuesday
With time running out on this session’s Supreme Court term, Republican senators are discussing their options on how to react to a possible court ruling that would cut-off potentially 6.4 million people from their health insurance tax credits. At the same time the Congressional Budget Office said in an updated review that repeal of the
Operating under budget caps and an allocation $3 billion below 2014 funding, on Wednesday, June 17 the House Appropriations Subcommittee approved a funding bill for 2016. The bill is still in draft form until the full report is prepared for full committee deliberation. The House draft avoids some of the controversial cuts of the recent
The House Appropriations Subcommittee will take up a Labor-HHS appropriations bill for FY 2016 on Wednesday. Any real debate is likely to be delayed for the full committee later in the week or month. As of last week the House had sent six appropriations bills to the Senate: Commerce-State-Justice (HR 2578), Energy and Water (HR
On Wednesday, June 10, the House Ways and Means Committee held what was to be the Committee’s annual review of the Administration’s proposed changes for HHS (including proposals addressing child welfare) but instead the event may be a precursor for a coming fight over health care reform. With the Supreme Court in the last weeks
On Wednesday and Thursday of last week, the Department of Health and Human Services along with the White House coordinated a convening of states to help address the implementation of last year’s Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act. In announcing the event, the National Convening on Trafficking and Child Welfare , the White House