Editor’s Note: Running the numbers in Congress

By Jason Dick

Posted June 7, 2024 at 5:06pm

The number of things about Congress to keep track of is staggering, so every so often we’ll boil it down to just a few, ahem, numbers. For the record, or your amusement, or both, here is a small quantitative batch that helped shape the legislative branch for the week of June 3-7, 2024.

1: New member sworn in, Rep. Vince Fong, R-Calif.
2: Appointments (Reps. Scott Perry, R-Pa., and Ronny Jackson, R-Texas) to the House Intelligence Committee made by Speaker Mike Johnson.
2: Leaders of immediately aforementioned committee (House Intelligence Chairman Michael R. Turner, R-Ohio, and ranking member Jim Himes, D-Conn.) who found out about Perry and Jackson joining their committee from press reports.
3: White House statements of administration policy released, regarding S. 4381 – the “Right to Contraception Act”; H.R. 8282 – “The Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act”; and H.R. 8580 — Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies appropriations.
4: Months in prison Steve Bannon was ordered by a federal judge to start serving by July 1.
8: Roll call votes in the Senate.
12: Pages in a House Ethics Committee report (along with two appendices covering another 370 pages combined) that found Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., violated House rules related to campaign finance recordkeeping but closed the inquiry, saying better guidance for members of Congress was needed about such things.
14: Republican senators who by Friday afternoon had signed a letter spearheaded by Utah Sen. Mike Lee to block all administration nominees and legislation, in retaliation for a New York jury finding former President Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts stemming from a plan to illegally influence the 2016 election.
15: Roll call votes in the House.
50: Cent, as in Curtis Jackson, who was on Capitol Hill advocating increased minority representation in the luxury spirits industry.
500: Dollar bill that Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., has introduced legislation to create, which would feature Trump’s portrait.