Voters may have rejected the Republican agenda at the polls on Tuesday, handing Democrats control of the House and Senate, but top GOP leaders are not ready to give up on their legislative ambitions just yet.
With two months left before Democrats formally take control of Congress, key Republican lawmakers are eying a catch-all legislative package in the lame-duck session that could allow them to enact as much of their remaining agenda as possible without input from Democrats.
Billions in funding for the Iran war, a debt limit increase, voting restrictions, crypto measures and hemp policy are among the measures floated by GOP lawmakers for a last-minute partisan reconciliation bill. As much as Democrats may be hoping to throw a wrench into the package, the only thing standing in the way of its passage will be Republicans.
Republicans also face a series of year-end deadlines on which they will need Democratic cooperation. Government funding runs out on Dec. 11, and Congress still has to pass its annual Pentagon policy bill.
But those negotiations may be more difficult than ever. For starters, lawmakers face significant logistical hurdles. There is a time crunch — lawmakers are only scheduled to be in session for a few weeks between now and the end of the year — and there could be attendance issues, as lawmakers who are not returning next year can sometimes be difficult to keep in Washington.
Democrats, meanwhile, may see an opportunity to use those must-pass measures as leverage, particularly if Republicans are simultaneously trying to ram through another reconciliation bill before losing unified control of Washington.
Democrats are likely to insist on more votes to end the Iran war, and the House will have to deal with a vote to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in the final days of the 119th Congress.
Of course, none of that is deterring Republicans from entertaining an ambitious final push.
“If we lose control of Congress, it’ll be the Last Supper,” Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, told reporters in October. “So it’ll be, you know, a giant reconciliation bill where we take all the Republican priorities that we can get done.”
Moreno said that if Republicans lost the House and Senate — which happened Tuesday — “we should be here from Nov. 9 until Dec. 31 with no break at all.”
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who became chair of the Senate Budget Committee in July, pushed for a GOP reconciliation bill over the summer that would have provided up to $150 billion in spending. The outline — largely focused on military, border and immigration spending — never materialized into a full bill before lawmakers left for the campaign trail.
But Johnson has not given up.
“We’re talking about doing a bigger and better one” after the election, Johnson told MS NOW in September.
The military and immigration spending should be part of the package, accompanied by a debt limit increase, unspecified fraud-reduction measures and “election integrity” measures, Johnson said.
Including a debt ceiling hike in a partisan reconciliation bill would allow Republicans to avert painstaking negotiations with Democrats when the government reaches the debt limit, which could happen sometime between late winter and mid-summer next year, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Johnson told MS NOW he secured a commitment from Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., in late September that Republicans would seek to pass a reconciliation bill in the lame-duck session, and that more workaday issues like permitting reform would not dominate the schedule.
At the time, Thune told reporters he had discussed the issue with Johnson and that a debt limit measure is one of the “potential options” to be included.
Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said Republicans need to prepare for a partisan package of defense spending through reconciliation, arguing that bipartisan negotiations on government funding bills would likely stall and lead to a long-term continuing resolution.
“In that scenario, we have got to plus-up our national defense in a big way, and reconciliation may be the only way to do it,” Cramer told reporters last week.
Democrats have a few points of leverage to reshape the last dregs of the GOP agenda. Passing a reconciliation bill would allow two rounds of virtually unlimited amendment votes, at least allowing Democrats to drag the process out.
If Republicans ultimately need Democratic votes to increase the debt limit, Democrats would likely extract concessions. While party leaders have not outlined specific demands, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, told MS NOW he would like them to start by fixing the Social Security solvency cliff, cutting “waste in the medical world and in the defense world” and “reversing some of the giveaways to the richest Americans.”
Republicans will also need Democratic support for those bills in December to avert a shutdown and extend defense policies.
Negotiations over spending levels stalled over the summer as Democrats pushed back against President Donald Trump’s war with Iran and negotiators were unable to agree to top-line defense spending levels.
The annual defense authorization measure, which expires Dec. 31, similarly stalled amid fights over the Iran war. In July, Democrats blocked a motion to start work on the Senate floor on the bill, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats would not let the measure “become a permission slip for that recklessness that we see occurring in Iran.”
Lawmakers have consistently enacted a defense authorization measure by the Dec. 31 deadline for decades. But this time, lawmakers are prepared for work to go down to the wire, Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., told reporters last week.
“When I was in the U.S. House, I was here in session on Dec. 31 at midnight,” Lummis said. “I’ve done it before, and I’m guessing that’s a possibility again this year.”
But Democrats are not the only potential obstacle to the GOP’s plans. Republicans themselves are divided over what should go into a reconciliation bill — and whether some of its more ambitious provisions are worth pursuing.
Rather than focusing on a few top priorities, a GOP reconciliation bill appears to be expanding.
Lummis said she would want a measure included on cryptocurrency policy, though she acknowledged “opening the tax code is challenging.”
Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., said he would want the package to include his measure to regulate intoxicating hemp products — reopening a debate that complicated talks on the last temporary government funding bill.
Other Republicans are hesitant to vote to increase the debt limit, saying it would have to be paired with fiscally conservative cost-saving measures.
“I voted against the bill last year because it raised $5 trillion,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told MS NOW in September. “It should be astounding to the American public to raise it $5 trillion last year and be asking for more.”
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said he would rather balance the federal budget than raise the debt limit. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he likely would not support a debt limit measure.
“Debt limit’s a next year thing,” Tillis told MS NOW in September. “I’m not going to leave here raising the debt without any assurance that they’re going to be fiscally responsible.”
Others are just skeptical that GOP leaders will follow through and members will work together to rally support for a reconciliation bill — especially after an earlier attempt in August fizzled.
“I’ve been hearing since God was a baby that we’re working on a plan for a reconciliation bill,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told MS NOW in September. “Have you seen one? I haven’t seen one.”
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