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The House easily passed a $1.1 trillion governmentwide spending bill, awarding wins to both Democrats and Republicans while putting off until later this year fights over President Donald Trump's promised border wall with Mexico and massive military buildup, the Associated Press reported yesterday. The 309-118 vote sends the bill to the Senate in time for them to act to avert a government shutdown at midnight Friday. The White House has said that Trump would sign the measure, which is the first major legislation to pass in Trump's presidency. House Speaker Paul Ryan praised the measure as bipartisan, and said the biggest gain for conservatives came as Democrats dropped longstanding demands to match Pentagon increases with equal hikes for non-defense programs. Democrats also backed the measure, which protects programs such as education, medical research and grants to state and local governments from cuts. The bill is the product of weeks of Capitol Hill negotiations. The White House won $15 billion in emergency funding to jumpstart Trump's promise to rebuild the military and an extra $1.5 billion for border security, leading the president on Tuesday to boast, "this is what winning looks like." The opinions of top party leaders were not shared by everyone in the rank and file, some of whom feel that GOP negotiators too easily gave up on conservative priorities, such as cutting funds for Planned Parenthood and punishing "sanctuary" cities that fail to cooperate with immigration authorities.

The U.S. House of Representatives will vote Thursday on a controversial Republican bill that would repeal and replace key parts of Obamacare, CNBC reported yesterday. "We will pass this bill," Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said. "I feel great about the [vote] count." The expected vote will come a day after two leading Republicans, Reps. Billy Long and Fred Upton, agreed to switch their expected “no” votes to “yes.” Both had come out against the bill because of a change made to it last week that would, in their view, weaken price protections for private individual plan insurance customers with pre-existing health conditions. But Long and Upton reversed their opinions after getting another amendment that would provide $8 billion in federal funding that would supposedly protect such customers from higher premiums. Their reversal added momentum to the push for the vote. Another factor that may have played a role in the scheduling of the vote is a scheduled recess for the House at the end of this week, and the desire by GOP leaders that members not face lobbying against the bill from constituents. The bill would reform the way that the federal government subsidizes purchases of individual health plans, and also how it funds Medicaid, the joint federal-state program that provides health coverage to primarily poor people. It would also eliminate Obamacare taxes.

The House Committee on the Judiciary is expected to consider H.R. 2266, the "Bankruptcy Judgeship Act of 2017," at a markup session this morning. The bipartisan bill, introduced recently by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), would convert some 14 temporary judgeships (located in Delaware, Southern District of Florida, Maryland, Eastern District of Michigan, Nevada, Eastern District of North Carolina, Puerto Rico and the Eastern District of Virginia) into permanent positions. Under current law, more than two dozen judgeships in the system have a lapse date of May 25, 2017. Without congressional action by that time, the positions could be eliminated should a sitting judge in one of these positions create a vacancy by death, retirement or disability. Temporary positions were created by BAPCPA in 2005 with a goal to tie judicial positions to where the caseload burden was greatest. There is a similar bill pending in the Senate. The House bill would fund the positions through an increase in the chapter 11 quarterly filing fee found in § 1930(a)(6).