Pelosi in Ukraine, Cruz’s CRA and Mayorkas’ DHS Mess

This week on Capitol Hill, the House is in recess and the Senate is in session. Here is what you may have missed in recent days and what Congress' priorities currently are.

Pelosi Leads Congressional Delegation in Ukraine and Poland

With the House in recess this week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was freed up to lead a congressional delegation to Ukraine and Poland.

Although we regularly criticize a majority of the work done by the Speaker and her caucus, I will give her credit where it is due.

Personally, I am glad to see her doing this important work. However, it begs the question of where is Joe Biden, and what does this say about America's standing in the world?

Leaders from both political parties have visited the region (Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy visited Poland over the Easter recess and Vice-President Kamala Harris went to Poland at the start of the conflict), but our own president won't go.

Pelosi's office also shared the following thoughts on the visit in an official statement.

“These engagements are even more meaningful following our meeting in Kyiv with President Volodymr Zelenskyy and other top Ukrainian leaders. In that profound and solemn visit, our delegation conveyed our respect and gratitude to President Zelenskyy for his leadership and our admiration of the Ukrainian people for their courage in the fight against Russia's diabolical invasion. Our Members were proud to deliver the message that additional American support is on the way, as we work to transform President Biden's strong funding request into a legislative package.”

Cruz's CRA

After the White House announced a rule to ban ghost guns last month, Senators Cruz, Braun, Lankford and Lee pledged to challenge Biden's gun control push by barring the rule from being enacted.

At the tail end of last week, Cruz officially introduced a Congressional Review Act meant to stop the implementation of the White House rule dead in its tracks.

In a statement released last Friday, Cruz said:

“For the past two years, we've seen crime rates skyrocket all across the country, aided by Democrats' soft-on crime policies and left-wing district attorneys operating like progressive activists instead of law enforcement officers. Democrats would love nothing more than to shift the blame and stoke anti-gun sentiment and create a permanent national gun registry in the process. By introducing this resolution, we're pushing back—we want to stop the Biden administration from issuing the final rule expanding the definition of firearms and instituting a national gun registry, we want to stop the false narrative that links the rise in crime to ‘ghost guns' and firearms, and we want to protect law-abiding citizens who are exercising their Second Amendment rights.”

The CRA mentioned above is not the only major opportunity that the chamber has to face down Biden on gun control in the coming weeks. The White House also formally forwarded the nomination of Steven Dettelbach to be ATF Director to the Senate, so a confirmation fight for the role shouldn't be too far away.

Mayorkas' DHS Mess

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas spent extensive time on Capitol Hill last week where he addressed three committees — House Committee on Homeland Security, House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security and the House Committee on the Judiciary.

There were many questions from members on both sides of the aisle throughout the three days and several heated exchanges between the secretary and Republican members.

After the hearings, Texas Congressman Chip Roy called out Secretary Mayorkas on Fox News for not having his priorities straight, pushing a new part of his agency called the “Disinformation Governance Board,” while ignoring its existing priorities such as securing the southern border.