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ARTICLE · 01 FEBRUARY 2021

Status Check On Congress (Beltway Buzz, January 29, 2021)

Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart
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Status Check on Congress. We are more than one week into the Biden administration and the president has made progress filling out his cabinet. Antony Blinken (U.S. secretary of state)

United StatesEmployment and HR
James J. Plunkett
James J. Plunkett
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Status Check on Congress. We are more than one week into the Biden administration and the president has made progress filling out his cabinet. Antony Blinken (U.S. secretary of state), Janet Yellen (U.S. secretary of the treasury), Lloyd Austin (U.S. secretary of defense), and Avril Haines (director of national intelligence) have all been confirmed by the U.S. Senate. But aside from these confirmations in the Senate, there hasn't been much activity in Congress. Indeed, legislators are still working on administrative issues such as committee assignments, and in the Senate, Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) haven't completely finalized all the details of their power-sharing agreement. This means that formal work on legislation relating to COVID-19, the economy, and immigration hasn't started yet. With regard to President Biden's COVID-19/economic stimulus plan, it appears that Democrats are still trying to decide whether

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