Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution sets a term of office of two years for all Members of the House. One House ends at the conclusion of each two-year Congress, and the newly elected Representatives must constitute a new House at the beginning of the next Congress. Consequently, the House must choose its Speaker and officers and adopt the chamber’s rules of procedure every two years.

The Constitution mandates that Congress convene at noon on January 3, unless the preceding Congress by law designated a different day. Although no officers will have been elected when the House first convenes, officers from the previous Congress perform certain functions, such as conducting the election of the Speaker.

The House follows a well-established first-day routine. The proceedings include—
 a call to order by the Clerk of the House;
 a prayer led by the Chaplain and the Pledge of Allegiance led by the Clerk;
 a quorum call ordered by the Clerk;
 the election of the Speaker, ordered by the Clerk and conducted with the assistance of tellers;
 remarks by the Speaker-elect, followed by his or her swearing-in by the dean of the House;
 the oath of office for the newly elected and re-elected Members, administered by the Speaker;
 adoption of the rules of the House for the new Congress;
 adoption of various administrative resolutions and unanimous consent
agreements; and
 announcement of the Speaker’s policies on certain floor practices.

On opening day, the House often adopts resolutions assigning some or many of its Members to committees. This process regularly continues over several more weeks. The committee assignment process occurs primarily within the party groups—the Republican Conference and the Democratic Caucus. Other routine organizational business may also be taken up on the House floor on the first day, such as adoption of a resolution to allow a judge or a Member of Congress to administer the oath of office to one or more Members-elect who are absent.

Some resolutions on opening day are dependent on specific circumstances and do not occur at the beginning of each new Congress. At the outset of a new Congress following a presidential election, the House and Senate must adopt a resolution agreeing to meet to count the electoral votes cast for President and Vice President.

THE VIEW FROM DONALD TRUMP
By New Year’s Day, he was busy litigating those election results on Truth Social, where he blamed anti-abortion hardliners for the outcome, without mentioning that he’d backed many of them in Republican primaries.

“It wasn’t my fault that Republicans didn’t live up to expectations in the MidTerms,” Trump wrote. “It was the ‘abortion issue,’ poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on NO Exceptions even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother that lost large numbers of Voters.”

He then added a dig at Republican voters who’d “pushed so hard, for decades, against abortion, got their wish from the U.S. Supreme Court, & just plain disappeared, not to be seen again.” The comments drew rebukes from conservatives like commentator Ben Domenech, who tweeted that, “Trump betraying the pro-life cause on Dobbs has been telegraphed for a long time.”

https://www.semafor.com/article/01/02/2023/trump-starts-the-new-year-by-attacking-hardline-republicans-on-abortion

There’s no way to sugarcoat this: Seven years after his last, failed bid for the speakership, KEVIN McCARTHY’s dreams of wielding the gavel are again in peril. Despite years of political contortions aimed at winning over his critics on the far right, with just over 24 hours left until the critical floor vote, the California Republican’s math problem is getting worse, not better.

On Sunday evening, McCarthy announced on a private conference call that he would give his antagonists one of their top demands: The threshold to trigger a vote ousting a speaker would shrink from half the GOP conference, as had been agreed to by a majority of the members, to five dissatisfied lawmakers. But hours later, a group of nine House conservatives issued a letter saying that’s not good enough.

That’s in addition to the five “Never Kevin” lawmakers who have already declared they’re opposing McCarthy. (Remember: He can lose only four votes if all House members cast votes Tuesday.)

But this morning, we can report that that’s not even the worst of it. We caught up Sunday with one of the GOP fence-sitters, a member who has been in the room for these negotiations. And he told us that some of these undecided members won’t support McCarthy — even if he gives them everything they want.

“The problem is people don’t trust Kevin McCarthy and a number won’t vote for him. Those are just the facts,” this lawmaker told us. “The list [of demands] that we offered was not for guaranteed support but rather the kinds of things that might move some of his detractors.”

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2023/01/02/mccarthy-on-the-brink-00076003

Dogue – pronounced like vogue – is a new San Francisco cafe just for dogs. And on Sundays, it offers a $75 tasting menu.

Since its debut in March, the prix fixe for pups instantly attracted a fair bit of rage, ridicule and rumination about late stage capitalism and societal decline. Inevitably, it also drew in hordes of millennial dog parents from the Bay Area and beyond.

Much of this passed right over the dogs’ heads.

On a recent weekend, a group of mutts at the tables up front were happily wolfing shortbread cookies, frosted with a wild game-infused icing. In the back, a fluffy little guy was too nervous to eat his pastry – eyes widening at the chaos all around. Between bites, the dogs sniffed and licked each other, tangling their leashes around the tables.