U.S. Government Affairs

  • 1.  House Passes a Continuing Resolution

    Posted 11-15-2023 09:21

    As has become an annual tradition, Congress has once again failed to complete the appropriations cycle by the end of the fiscal year and is operating under continuing resolutions.  The latest CR is scheduled to expire on Saturday, but last night, the House passed another CR to avoid a government shutdown.  However, this CR is different than previous versions.

    It will fund the appropriations accounts of Military Construction/Veterans Affairs, Transportation and Housing & Urban Development, and Energy & Water until January 19.  The remaining eight bills (including DHS) are extended until February 2.  This staggered approach (being referred to as a "laddered CR") is being done to avoid the pre-holiday "fiscal cliff" and give Appropriators more time to get individual bills completed.

    The final tally was 336-95, with more Democrats voting for the Speaker's bill than Republicans.

    Punchbowl News provided an analysis of the process and politics of the new CR.  Check it out below...

    -----------------------

    If you listen to Speaker Mike Johnson, his bill to avert a government shutdown - which passed the House with mostly Democratic votes Tuesday evening - will finally give the GOP majority the leverage it needs to cut spending and force major policy changes.

    But Johnson has a big problem - there's no evidence at this point that the two-step CR will do anything of the sort.

    When the initial Jan. 19 funding deadline comes along - just 21 legislative days away under the current House calendar - Johnson will likely be in largely the same position he's in now.

    He'll have a House Republican Conference that disagrees with his tactics and is unwilling to set aside its own short-term politics to seek a long-term funding deal. Just 57% of House Republicans voted for the CR Tuesday, hardly a mark of confidence in the new speaker.

    House Republicans will only have a narrow four-seat majority by that point. And Johnson will still have a conference that is seeking steep spending cuts while the Senate is proceeding with bipartisan funding bills.

    Johnson's members have so far failed to pass some major spending bills, including the Labor-HHS, Commerce-Justice-Science and Transportation-HUD packages. The Senate will still be far more united than the fractured House.

    Johnson couldn't even pass a rule - a typically party-line procedural motion - for the CR this week. When it comes to actually winning a spending showdown with President Joe Biden and Democrats, Johnson and House Republicans are nowhere.

    "Well, that's a problem," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), referring to the narrow majority and the House's inability to pass key appropriations bills.

    The Senate will begin work today on the short-term CR, which sets Jan. 19 and Feb. 2 as funding deadlines. The White House is signaling it will back the measure, despite officials publicly bashing it previously.

    By early next year, Johnson will have used up a significant amount of political capital to squeeze a clean CR through the House with just 127 of 221 GOP members, an embarrassing result for any Republican speaker. The House GOP Conference remains divided over aid to Ukraine and the reauthorization of FISA surveillance authority - not to mention the negotiated NDAA bill.

    On top of that, Johnson declared Tuesday he won't pass another short-term spending bill, adding even more pressure to an already tense situation.

    In fact, it's difficult to see any reason why January and February will be any better for House Republicans.

    Johnson's biggest challenge isn't of his making, but he's unable to avoid it either.

    Biden and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy cut a deal in May on the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which lifted the debt limit and set out spending parameters for next year. It included proposed FY2024 spending levels that are supported by Biden, the Senate and House Democrats.

    House Republicans, though, are intent on slashing tens of billions of dollars from that total, plus throwing in a lot of culture war provisions on climate change, transgender policy and other issues into appropriations bills. This guarantees the bills aren't going anywhere, but House GOP lawmakers - pushed by hardline conservatives - keep trying.

    Plus, the Senate is laboring to pass a huge national-security funding package that will include provisions conservatives hate - Ukraine aid, for example - as well as border-security changes that won't go far enough for a lot of House Republicans.

    "We'll have a lot of the same issues we're still dealing with now," Senate Minority Whip John Thune said of the next funding clash. "There's a ton of work to do. But I think keeping the government funded this week is a good starting point."

    For Thune's chamber, having more time to debate FY2024 appropriations bills will be a benefit, especially since the Senate has only passed three of the 12 funding bills so far.

    But Senate Republicans are also warning against the idea of a year-long CR, saying it would short-change the Pentagon. Some Republicans suggest that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is dragging his feet on FY2024 appropriations bills to force an omnibus.

    "The Senate has got to continue to lead on this issue. If Sen. Schumer had rolled immediately into the next minibus, we would have finished it by the end of last week," Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the top GOP appropriator, told us. "I truly don't understand it, other than maybe his preference is for an omnibus. But that's certainly not the preference of most members."

    Senate appropriators have been discussing the idea of grouping the remaining funding bills into one legislative vehicle, but this could easily be dismissed by Johnson and House Republicans as an omnibus-like bill. Of course, it's different from an omnibus in that each portion was approved overwhelmingly in committee.

    And remember: the Four Corners have yet to agree to topline spending numbers, which needs to happen before the House and Senate can begin negotiations on their FY2024 bills. Senators believe they have the upper hand here because of how bipartisan their process has been.

    "Maybe we don't get them conferenced because the numbers are pretty far apart," Thune said. "But at least when it comes time to write a final bill, we'll be starting at benchmarks that were set by full involvement of all senators on both sides of the aisle, instead of having it written in Chuck Schumer's office."

    - Jake Sherman, Andrew Desiderio and John Bresnahan



    ------------------------------
    Thad Huguley
    Government Affairs Director
    IAEM
    Falls Church VA
    (615) 870-9316
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: House Passes a Continuing Resolution

    Posted 11-16-2023 08:47

    As an update to yesterday's post about the House passing a CR...last night the Senate passed the laddered CR by a vote of 87-11.  President Biden is expected to sign the bill before a government shutdown would have started tomorrow night.  And, Congress promptly left town for the Thanksgiving break, postponing any of the work that needs to be done to avoid another potential shutdown when the new CR expires.  Is it any wonder why the appropriations process is so broken?!?



    ------------------------------
    Thad Huguley
    Government Affairs Director
    IAEM
    Falls Church VA
    (615) 870-9316
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: House Passes a Continuing Resolution

    Posted 11-16-2023 11:32

    More political context from Politico Huddle...

    ------------

    PROCRASTINATION STATION

    House lawmakers skipped town Wednesday for their longest break in nearly three months, leaving behind a long list of unfinished business - and not much time to address it.

    The much-anticipated Thanksgiving break kicked off on a sour note, with GOP leaders prematurely canceling votes after members of their conference revolted, foiling plans to advance yet another fiscal 2024 appropriations bill.

    The situation stands to give Speaker Mike Johnson some heartburn with his turkey dinner next week, with conservatives basically refusing to cooperate on these full-year spending bills until they see Johnson commit to cutting spending. The internal GOP impasse leaves the House in tough shape as they try to improve their negotiating posture ahead of a new bifurcated Jan.19/Feb. 2 shutdown deadline.

    What needs to happen: The stopgap buys time for the House to continue trying to pass what's left of its 12 appropriations bills. The remaining bills - Transportation-HUD, Agriculture-FDA, Commerce-Justice-Science, Labor-HHS-Education and Financial Services - are the most politically treacherous for Johnson.

    Conservatives signaled Wednesday that they are done cooperating on the individual bills until Johnson gives them a plan that cuts spending and includes policy wins - never mind that there are plenty of moderate Republicans who aren't on board with their agenda.

    "We want policies of the Republican majority, not policies reflective of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden, " Freedom Caucus Chair Scott Perry (R-Pa.) told us.

    The sudden schedule shift came after a coalition of conservative hard-liners and moderates defeated a rule that would bring the Commerce-Justice-Science bill to the floor and after progress stalled on the Labor-HHS-Education bill that was already under debate.

    The conservatives said they tanked the rule in direct response to Johnson's backing of a clean continuing resolution, which passed the House with more Democratic support than Republican support on Tuesday. Moderates, meanwhile, said they didn't see the point in bringing a bill to the floor that would expose members to controversial amendment votes but couldn't ultimately pass.



    ------------------------------
    Thad Huguley
    Government Affairs Director
    IAEM
    Falls Church VA
    (615) 870-9316
    ------------------------------