Tomorrow in the House:
If the House has not received a message from the Senate before April 6, 2011, stating that it has passed a measure providing for the appropriations for the departments and agencies of the Government for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, the provisions of H.R. 1, as passed by the House on February 19, 2011, are hereby enacted into law.
That’s section 2(a) of H.R. 1255, which, under that pesky Constitution we have, cannot become law unless it is also passed by the Senate and signed by the President. But H.R. 1 failed to pass the Senate back on 9 March, 44-56. I suspect this bill would fail by a similar margin. Which makes H.R. 1255 completely superfluous. I am forced to conclude that this is an April Fools’ joke by the House Republican leadership, because otherwise this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.