Congress
Capitol agenda: Red, white and GOP hard-liner blues
House Republicans finally cleared a runway this week to finish some of their top legislative priorities before the July 4 recess.
That is, unless a small band of hard-liners trip up those plans at takeoff.
Speaker Mike Johnson is hoping to move quickly to pass fiscal 2027 appropriations legislation, the annual defense policy bill and a kids online safety bill that has been years in the making. The movement comes after President Donald Trump instructed GOP hard-liners to stop holding up a procedural vote amid a protest from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna and others that the Senate hadn’t passed Trump’s election security bill.
But Luna and other hard-liners are still threatening to tank the procedural vote that could delay the defense policy bill and other measures until they get concessions on the SAVE America Act, amid other demands.
Johnson, for example, had also promised hard-liners a vote before July 4 on a sweeping GOP immigration bill introduced in the prior Congress as H.R. 2, which is highly unlikely to happen.
Johnson for his part has said the House will “pass the SAVE America Act again” by folding parts of it into a third party-line reconciliation bill. But the slimmed-down version he’d need to pursue in order to meet strict Senate rules for the budget process is already being panned by hard-liners as insufficient.
That reconciliation bill is also already delayed. House Republicans aren’t on track to meet their goal of advancing its framework before the July 4 recess as members on the Budget panel balked over how to pay for the legislation in a closed-door meeting last week.
“Time is of the essence, given how many legislative days we have,” House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie, who is sponsoring the kids online safety legislation, said in an interview last week. “If we lose a week, that would be important.”
Meanwhile, Democratic leadership is grappling with their own heated internal divisions this week. Members are split over supporting the adoption of an amendment to a fiscal 2027 spending bill from Rep. Thomas Massie that would end Israel aid and cut the overall foreign military aid program by $3.3 billion.
Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro did not instruct her colleagues on how to vote during a rare Sunday evening caucus call, two sources granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting tell Mia and Riley. Leaders did, however, criticize the amendment as poorly written.
One other item this week that could split members of each party: House lawmakers are also slated to vote on a rewritten war powers resolution from Rep. Rashida Tlaib to reign in Trump administration military actions in Lebanon. Leadership worked with Tlaib to come up with new language last month that is expected to garner more Dem support, but the resolution is still expected to fail without GOP votes.
What else we’re watching:
— SENATE GOP GETS ANTSY ABOUT NOMINATIONS: Some Republican senators are unsettled by Trump’s apparent lack of urgency in filling vacant posts, even as GOP control of the chamber beyond the midterms is increasingly in doubt. There are more than two dozen federal court vacancies. Labor secretary, FDA commissioner and scores of other open positions do not have nominees, and a senior White House official said Trump is in no rush to fill them. “We’re running short on time,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a member of Senate HELP, which oversees health, labor and other issues.
—RICK SCOTT SAYS HE’S JUST TRYING TO HELP: Fresh off his controversial Trump invite to a Senate GOP lunch last week, Sen. Rick Scott told Blue Light News in an interview he’s trying to make a mark — not trying to challenge Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Scott insists that neither his invitation to the president nor a letter he circulated afterward outlining how the Senate GOP should be preparing for the midterms should be seen as a prelude to a leadership challenge. The Florida Republican said he’s perfectly happy running the conference’s conservative Steering Committee and predicted Thune would easily secure another term as leader. What has become eminently clear in recent weeks is that Scott — after a long career in business, two terms as governor and nearly eight years as senator — just isn’t a back-bench kind of guy.
Meredith Lee Hill, Riley Rogerson, Alex Gangitano, Jordain Carney and Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.
House Republican leaders are pushing ahead with a vote on a stopgap funding bill Tuesday — even if the vote could mean freezing the House floor for the rest of the week.
Several House Republicans angry over how GOP leaders have handled the spending legislation are threatening to tank a subsequent vote on a procedural measure setting up debate on several additional bills. The funding bill is expected to get a vote first under special fast-track procedures, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said GOP leaders will “handle each vote as it happens.”
“We know [procedural votes] are always difficult with a small, small majority, and you look at attendance and all those things, but at the end of the day, the [continuing resolution], it’s the first vote,” Scalise told reporters Tuesday. “That’s really important to avoid a government shutdown, and then we’ll … take it from there.”
Many of the Republicans threatening a floor revolt are upset with a provision delaying a hemp products ban. That includes Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas, a former Rules Committee chair, who said he plans to vote against the procedural measure that the panel advanced on Monday.
The Texas Republican is not typically one to defy leadership and said “if they took out the language on this hemp issue” he would support the rule.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the House Freedom Caucus, also said he plans to vote against the bill, as did Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who sent a letter to top Republicans arguing the continuing resolution would extend taxpayer dollars for abortion services. Other GOP hard-liners, such as Reps. Paul Gosar of Arizona, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Keith Self of Texas, were noncommittal on the key vote.
House GOP leaders appear to be watching the absences on both sides. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer said in an interview Tuesday “we’ll see” if the rule is adopted, pointing to the dozens of members who skipped votes Monday night.
Several Republicans are already speculating the House could head home early if the stopgap funding bill is passed and holdouts stymie the rest of the legislative agenda. So far, GOP leaders aren’t indicating a change of plans.
“We’re moving forward to continue working as long as we can keep getting the agenda moved,” Scalise said. “We have other things we want to do.”
Speaker Mike Johnson told a closed-door meeting of senior House Republicans on Monday night that he met with GOP megadonor Elon Musk in Austin last week, according to two people who were in the room, as House GOP leaders hope he’ll bolster their campaign efforts in key battlegrounds.
Blue Light News first reported the planned meeting between Johnson, Musk and some other Republicans last week. Republicans involved in the matter are hopeful Musk will start unleashing a portion of the $100 million-plus he reportedly plans to spend on the midterms to boost House Republicans through his super PAC, America PAC — likely in the form of field organizing support and other resources.
Johnson didn’t say in the Monday meeting whether Musk made any commitments during the meeting in Austin last Friday, which came as the speaker barnstormed Texas battleground races that will help determine House control next year. But Republicans in the room took it as a suggestion Musk could unleash spending on their behalf, according to the two people.
A spokesperson for America PAC did not respond to an inquiry. A spokesperson for Johnson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
How much trouble is the GOP leadership floor plan in? Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas, a former Rules Committee chair who is not in the habit of defying party leaders, said he plans to vote against the procedural measure advanced by the panel last night. He cited concerns about the delay of a hemp products ban in the short-term spending bill leaders want to pass Tuesday.
“I think they’ve got to change it,” Sessions said. “Let’s just make it a clean [continuing resolution]. I’ll vote for that.”
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