Congress: Big Picture Legislative Update. The 119th Congress is revving up, and the Buzz is monitoring two major legislative issues:

• Government funding expires on March 14, 2025—one month from today. Clearly, there is plenty of political acrimony between the parties and consternation among Democrats concerning how the administration has operated during its first several weeks. There are no clear signs yet about whether we are heading for a government shutdown, and anything can happen, as we saw during the final week of 2024.

• This week, the U.S. Congress officially started the budget reconciliation process that it will use to pass Republican legislative priorities, such as tax cuts, border security, defense spending, and energy promotion. As the Buzz has previously discussed, this complicated process will allow the Republicans to avoid the legislative filibuster in the U.S. Senate and pass legislation on a party-line basis. The process is likely to take up much of Congress’s time in the coming weeks and months.

AG Issues Memos on Private-Sector DEI. On February 5, 2025, Pam Bondi, the newly confirmed attorney general, issued two memoranda to U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) employees instructing them on steps that they must take to implement Executive Order (EO) 14173, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” The memos are as follows:

• “Ending Illegal DEI and DEIA Discrimination and Preferences.” This memo instructs the DOJ’s Civil Rights...

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