Senate Floor Schedule, Week of July 4 through July 8

Thursday, July 7
9:30 am: The Senate convenes.
(a) prayer
(b) pledge
(c) leader remarks

S.1323, Sense of the Senate resolution
The Senate resumes consideration of the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S.1323, a bill to express the sense of the Senate on shared sacrifice in resolving the budget deficit. Senators will be permitted to speak up to ten minutes each until 10 am, with the time equally divided between the leaders or their designees.

10:00 am: Vote on the cloture motion. Requires 60 votes. We expect it to fail on a party line vote. See our reasons why, and our description of why this is important in the deficit reduction debate, here: http://ow.ly/5yBJw

Therefore, further business will be clarified after morning proceedings.

Wednesday, July 6
The Senate will convene at 10 am and consider S.1323, expressing the Sense of the Senate on the need for shared sacrifice concerning the budget deficit.

Tuesday, July 5
3:39pm update: The consideration of cloture on the motion to proceed to S.J.Res.20, the Libya resolution, was scheduled and detailed below. However, because of developments on the Hill and talks between the Senate Majority Leader and Senate Minority Leader (Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell), there are no longer any Libya votes scheduled.

Instead, budget matters are now the pending business of the Senate. Senator Reid has a "Sense of the Senate" resolution ready on "shared sacrifice." At 5pm, there will be a vote today on asking the sergeant-at-arms to request the attendance of Senators.

We will update you with further developments and corrections.

S.J.Res. 20: A joint resolution authorizing the limited use of the United States Armed Forces in support of the NATO mission in Libya
(1) The Senate will convene at 2pm on Tuesday.
(2) Following any leader remarks (time reserved for the majority and minority leader to speak on any subject), the Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S.J. Res 20, the Kerry-McCain Resolution on Libya.
(3) At 5 pm, the Senate will vote on a motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed. This is necessary because Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin objected to unanimous consent to proceed to the immediate consideration of the joint resolution, which would have expedited the process.

Libya Timeline and Procedure Explanation
(1) In order to consider S.J. Res 20, a Senator must make a motion to proceed to the consideration of the Libya joint resolution. The motion itself is debatable.

(2) Because of the likely inability to gain unanimous consent to expedite the process (Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has said he will object to Senate business that he doesn't consider of paramount importance), the Senate needs to invoke cloture on the motion. This means that 60 Senators can start a specific timetable that brings the debate to a close, which is detailed below:

(a) Each Senator is entitled to a total of one hour on the pending matter.
(b) The Senate will consider the matter for no more than 30 hours and vote on final disposition of the motion to proceed to the consideration of S.J. Res 20.
(c) This does not mean the Senate has passed or ended debate on the measure itself. It means that the Senate has ended debate on whether to make the Libya resolution the pending business for consideration.
(d) Given the possibility that the Senate will not be able to deal with the Libya resolution by unanimous consent, it is reasonable to expect another cloture motion. That motion, should it be made, would end the debate on Libya that tomorrow's vote would start.

We will have more updates on the schedule as events transpire.