The House reconvened Monday after five long weeks of recess. Members won’t stick around Washington for long though. Friday marks the start of another 10-day recess for Labor Day and Rosh Hashanah. After that, there will be just three weeks remaining in session before Election Day — but the beleaguered Republican majority is hoping even that wildly short window will be slammed shut early.
There will be just three weeks remaining in session before Election Day — but the beleaguered Republican majority is hoping even that wildly short window will be slammed shut early.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., currently has one major action item on his to-do list: passing a stopgap spending bill to avert a shutdown when the current fiscal year ends on Oct. 1. The Senate sent the bill, which extends funding until Dec. 11, over to the House before its own recess began last month. As The Washington Post noted, the bill also includes a White House-requested boost in funding for housing and nutrition programs and temporarily stops the Office of Management and Budget from seizing more control over allocating federal grants.
If the bill makes it through the House quickly, according to Politico, many Republicans would rather spend the remaining time between now and November away from the Capitol, campaigning to keep their jobs:
“So many people are having to run back and forth to campaign,” Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) told reporters Thursday. “I think we can get some other things done [beyond the spending stopgap], but the big bills will probably have to wait until after the election.”
Another House Republican, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, was more blunt: “I think we have very little to do.” A third member, running for reelection in a competitive district, said in a text message, “I’d be happy to be sent home early!”
Their lack of interest in legislating is unsurprising given how underwhelming the current session has been for the GOP caucus. The House’s major accomplishments this year have been reopening the Department of Homeland Security after a prolonged shutdown and passing a separate funding bill to pay for immigration enforcement. There was a major bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law, but President Donald Trump refused to sign the bill, making it harder for Republicans to promote the win. Altogether, it’s a meager record for Johnson’s members running for re-election to write home about.
Meanwhile, the speaker’s dreams of a passing a third reconciliation bill before the midterm elections have been dashed upon the rocks, along with the attendant hopes of providing his members’ campaigns more fodder. At best, that bill’s prospects might be revived during a lame-duck session after the midterms. Republican lawmakers who might otherwise have withheld their support for another party-line spending bill could change their tune in the face of a handover of power to the Democrats. That does little to prevent the growing feeling of confidence among the minority about their chances of becoming the majority come January.
But getting the stopgap bill passed easily is not a given for Johnson will manage to get the stopgap bill passed easily. Two riders to the funding make things more difficult for Johnson to rally the votes under most circumstances. One, which Senate Democrats insisted be included, blocks the Trump administration from transferring funds to Border Patrol. The other is a Trump-requested monthlong delay on banning the kind of hemp-derived products that get their users high and are currently available in gas stations nationwide. The latter is especially irksome for Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., the Freedom Caucus chairman who has been pushing hard for the ban to take effect.
But Johnson isn’t relying on his own caucus’ votes to pass the continuing resolution, as these short-term funding bills are called on Capitol Hill. Instead, House leadership plans to bring the stopgap bill forward under a procedure known as “suspension of the rules,” which can expedites passage but requires a two-thirds majority support.
Nobody likes being dragged in from vacation for busy work.
That means, as has so often been the case, House Democrats will have to provide the votes to keep the government open and functioning. If everything goes according to plan, the funding bill will be making its way to Trump’s desk by Tuesday evening. There are a few other bills that will be debated over the rest of the week but none of as much consequence.
In one sense, it’s hard to blame GOP legislators who’d rather be anywhere but Washington right now. Nobody likes being dragged in from vacation for busy work. But having such a short to-do list shows how hollowed-out the legislative branch has become over the years, especially under Republican stewardship. Johnson and his team continue to insist in the face of dire polling and historical trends that they’ll walk away from the midterms with a more sizable (and more manageable) majority to work with. Even in the unlikely event that prophecy comes to pass, it’s not readily apparent what GOP lawmakers would do beyond continue shielding Trump from the threat of accountability.
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