Tuesday: Nominations, ending benefits for Nazis

The House will vote on a series of bills under suspension of the rules, including a measure, H.R. 5739, to terminate Social Security benefits for suspected Nazi war criminals. 

The bipartisan measure comes in light of an Associated Press report which found that dozens of suspected Nazi war criminals pressured to leave the U.S. without going through the lengthy deportation process still collected millions in federal benefits.

{mosads}The Senate starts at 10 a.m. and will spend the day considering several of President Obama’s nominations.

Sens. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) will also formally be sworn in to serve the remainder of their current terms. 

Scott was appointed to fill Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) seat when he retired in 2012. In November, South Carolina voters decided to allow Scott to finish the full-term.

Schatz was appointed to fill the seat of former Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who died.

At 10:30 a.m., the Senate will vote on the confirmation of Noah Mamet to be U.S. ambassador to Argentina and Colleen Bradley Bell to be U.S. ambassador to Hungary — both raised more than $500,000 for President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.

The Senate is expected to reach an agreement to hold several more votes on executive branch nominations for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Consumer Product Safety Commission and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Despite needing to passed a reauthorization of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a tax extenders package and a government funding bill, the Senate could spend the entire week clearing more of Obama’s executive and judicial nominations.

With Republicans taking control of the upper chamber next year, Democrats are more motivated than ever to clear as many of Obama’s nominees as possible before adjourning for the year.