Reconciliation Bill Hits the House Floor, Another Discharge Petition, Nominations in the Senate, FISA Expires Friday

Point of Order is a (mostly) weekly preview of key congressional activity for those with more than a passing interest in federal policy.

Schedule and suspensions in the House: The House returns today at 2:00 pm for legislative business. Votes will be postponed until 6:30 pm. The House will also be in session on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The last votes for the week are currently expected on Thursday. Nineteen (19) bills are expected to be considered under the suspension of the rules (listed below). The cost estimates for those bills are available here.

• H.R. 8463, Pre-Payment Fraud Prevention and Treasury Data Access Act (Oversight and Government Reform Committee)

• H.R. 6916, Federal Program Integrity and Fraud Prevention Act (Oversight and Government Reform Committee)

• H.R. 428, Bonuses for Cost-Cutters and Fraud Preventers Act (Oversight and Government Reform Committee)

• H.R. 8467, Zeroing Out Monetary Benefits Improperly Expended Act (Oversight and Government Reform Committee)

• H.R. 8466, Taxpayer Resources Used in Emergencies (TRUE) Accountability Act (Oversight and Government Reform Committee)

• H.R. 8340, Taxpayer Funds Oversight and Accountability Act (Oversight and Government Reform Committee)

• H.R. 8107, Government Audit and Accountability of Federally Funded State-Administered Programs Act (Oversight and Government Reform Committee)

• H.R. 8428, Federal Fraud Prevention Workforce Training Act (Oversight and Government Reform Committee)

• H.R. 2505, Block the Use of Transatlantic Technology in Iranian Made Drones Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)

• H.R. 3429, US-Japan-ROK Trilateral Cooperation Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)

• H.R. 6338, Stop Illegal Fishing Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)

• H.R. 1744, USCIRF Reauthorization Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)

• H.R. 6297, PEACE Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)

• H.R. 5248, PROFIT Act; E-Family (Title V) of the State Department Authorization Act for FY2026 (Foreign Affairs Committee)

• H.R. 6230, Tehran Incitement to Violence Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)

• H.R. 7037, Developing Overseas Mineral Investments and New Allied Networks for Critical Energies Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)

• H.R. 8665, Allied Defense Sales Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)

• H.R. 7668, Countering China’s Control of the Caucasus Act (Foreign Affairs Committee)

• H.R. 6028, Legislative Branch Agencies Clarification Act (House Administration Committee)

Bills that come to the floor under suspension of the rules require two-thirds of members present and voting for passage. This is the most common way that bills considered by the House come to the floor. Some of these bills may be passed by a voice vote, rather than a roll call vote. Most bills that come to the floor under suspension aren’t widely considered controversial, although leadership may occasionally test a bill under suspension to gauge opposition or sneak a bill through the chamber.

Rule bills: The House Rules Committee will meet today at 1:00 pm to markup the rule providing for the consideration of the No Aid for Ghost Students Act, H.R. 7892; the Secure America Act, S. 2; the Fraud Prevention and Accountability Act, H.R. 8312; the Stopping Fraudulent Payments Act, H.R. 8464, and a resolution condemning actors seeking to defraud the United States Government, and expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that government-wide fraud and improper payment prevention reforms will meaningfully improve the financial prosperity of the United States, and that Federal program eligibility should be verified before payment, H.Res. 1335. For those playing along at home, the Secure America Act is the reconciliation bill. Additional legislative items are possible this week.

Another discharge petition: We’ve seen unprecedented use of discharge petitions, and more could be on the way. This week, the House will consider the discharge petition for H.Res. 1140, which provides for the consideration of the Faster Labor Contracts Act, H.R. 5408.

FISA is coming down the wire: Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expires at the end of Friday. Neither chamber appears to have the votes to extend the program. Part of the problem in the Senate is that Trump named Bill Pulte as the acting Director of National Intelligence. Pulte, who has no intelligence experience, has served as the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, where he used information to make accusations against Trump’s political enemies. Pulte will step into the role at the end of June, and he has been given a mandate from Trump to cut jobs from the office. The Senate took a procedural vote on an extension of the program on Friday morning. Between general opposition to Section 702 without reforms and the naming of Pulte to serve as acting DNI, the motion to proceed was rejected.

Let’s be clear here about the Senate FISA bill: Look, it was a bad bill that actually expanded the government’s ability to go after Americans. Section 3 requires a FISA Court order before the government can use Section 702 information as evidence in criminal prosecutions, except in cases involving certain serious crimes (in which case no court order is required). This might look like a restriction, but existing law already imposes a complete ban on the use of Section 702 information in domestic criminal cases that don’t involve that same list of serious crimes. In other words, rather than creating a meaningful new safeguard, Section 3 establishes a process through which the government can use Section 702 information in prosecutions in which it is currently not permissible to use that information at all. In practice, the section functions as a pathway, not a barrier. And that pathway allows the government to use Americans’ Section 702 data against them if it can obtain any type of FISA Court order, including one issued under the low standard of relevance. How anyone can frame this as a reform is mindboggling. Section 6 merely restates requirements that already exist under Title I of FISA for individualized surveillance of U.S. persons. This section wouldn’t require a warrant for queries of Americans’ information collected under Section 702, so it doesn’t address the concern that those working on FISA have about the backdoor search loophole. It remains to be seen if leadership in either chamber can pull off even a short-term extension.

House committee schedule: The full House committee schedule for the week is here. If you’re interested in watching any of these hearings online, you can find committee websites here.

Nominations in the Senate: The Senate returns at 3:00 pm today. Around 5:30 pm, the Senate will take a roll call vote on the nomination of Anthony W. Mattivi to serve as a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas. The rest of the week in the Senate isn’t clear yet.

Senate committee schedule: The full Senate committee schedule for the week is here. If you’re interested in watching any of these hearings online, you can find committee websites here.

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