Congress
Capital agenda: Cue shutdown watch after Republicans go it alone on ICE funding
Republicans solved an immediate crisis Tuesday, clearing for President Donald Trump’s signature a party-line bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies into 2029. But that hardly improves the chances of avoiding a shutdown for the rest of the government.
Members of both parties say the odds of another federal funding lapse are unimproved, if not heightened, by the GOP’s choice to fund ICE and Border Patrol for three years without buy-in from Democrats — even though they no longer have to fight about one of the thorniest policy issues confronting Congress.
As Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) put it, the GOP’s move to fund immigration agencies for three years “takes care” of the threat of a shutdown “in that area … But how many other accounts do we have that we could have another kerfuffle?”
“It’s not helpful for sure,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the Senate’s top Democratic appropriator, told reporters of the GOP’s use of the budget reconciliation process for funding DHS immigration activities. “It makes it very difficult for us moving forward.”
Republicans’ circumvention of the normal appropriations process comes less than four months from the next government shutdown deadline Sept. 30, which will hit just weeks before the midterms determine which party controls the House and Senate next year.
It’s widely accepted on Capitol Hill that Congress will need to pass a stopgap funding bill to keep cash flowing for the agencies past the November elections. Yet some are predicting that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will go further, directing his members to oppose a funding patch — though Democrats have not committed to threatening a shutdown.
“They do not want appropriation bills. They do want to shut down the government,” Sen. John Kennedy told reporters of Democrats. “And they think they’re going to take the House and maybe the Senate and can get a better deal then.”
Many appropriators are holding out hope that collegiality on the House and Senate funding panels will ultimately prevail — if for no other reason than the margins of the GOP majorities in both chambers depend on it. Others are concerned Republicans have opened the door to funding more conservative priorities through reconciliation measures rather than the annual government funding bills.
After House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris of Maryland floated the idea this week of putting more controversial spending proposals into party-line packages, House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) immediately rejected it.
“We’re not doing that. I will just tell you flat out, that will not happen,” Cole told reporters Tuesday morning. “I don’t think [the GOP-only reconciliation bill] is a precedent. But if it became a regular practice, I certainly wouldn’t be supporting it.”
What else we’re watching:
—TRUMP REJECTS A PULTE OFF-RAMP TO SAVE FISA: Trump indicated in a private meeting with Speaker Mike Johnson Tuesday he’s not inclined to appease Democrats and pave the way for an extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by quickly nominating a permanent director of national intelligence to replace the controversial acting director, Bill Pulte. The deadline to avoid a program lapse is Friday.
Trump doubled down on his pick Tuesday evening, announcing on Truth Social that Pulte would officially take the reins on June 19 — even earlier than what many had expected.
Most Democrats are still refusing to move forward with a reauthorization of Section 702 authority — or approve another short-term extension — so long as Pulte, a Trump ally with no intelligence experience, remains in the post.
“People were already getting grumpy about continued short-term extensions, and the naming of Bill Pulte just made them more grumpy,” said Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
— HOUSE OVERSIGHT TO PRESS BILL GATES ON EPSTEIN: Bill Gates has gotten used to hitting softballs from lawmakers about his philanthropy. But the billionaire Microsoft founder and global health activist will face a very different audience Wednesday when he’s due to answer questions behind closed doors about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Gates is set to testify before House Oversight and Government Reform as part of the panel’s ongoing Epstein investigation, and members, in interviews over the past week, say they aren’t going to take it easy on him. It will be a test of whether the world’s richest man can continue to avoid the reputational damage others have incurred by virtue of their ties to the late, convicted sex offender, as people who rely on Gates’ philanthropic foundation have not yet cut ties.
“It’s obviously really, really troubling, and I’m somebody who believes that Bill Gates has done extraordinary philanthropic work around the world and truly life-saving work,” said Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.), a member of the panel. “But we obviously have to separate our feelings about that from this investigation, and those two things co-exist.”
Meredith Lee Hill, Carmen Paun, Hailey Fuchs and Calen Razor contributed to this report.
A pair of House Democrats voted to rescue the Republican legislative agenda Tuesday as GOP leaders faced an internal revolt, representing an extremely rare crossing of party lines on a procedural vote in a closely divided chamber.
Democratic Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington voted with most Republicans to set up debate on a series of GOP-led bills, including a resolution condemning socialism that party leaders want to use to hammer Democrats on the campaign trail.
The two Democrats were decisive in the 210-208 vote, where five Republicans had broken ranks over frustrations with how party leaders had handled an earlier vote on government spending.
Neither Golden nor Gluesenkamp Perez gave immediate comment on their votes. Both are members of the moderate Blue Dog Democrats, and Golden is not seeking reelection in November.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters he did not get a heads-up from the two Democrats, and Majority Whip Tom Emmer also suggested he was caught by surprise.
“I don’t count Democratic votes,” he said.
Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, said he believed Golden backed the measure because it provided for passage of a bill benefiting lobstermen in his home state. The bill in question delays the implementation of fishing regulations meant to protect the right whale population.
The GOP holdouts were upset over a variety of issues linked to the spending bill, including the inclusion of a delay on a ban on sales of some hemp products and the manner in which GOP leaders put the funding bill on the floor. That bill, which had White House backing, passed earlier Tuesday in a 370-48 vote.
Had the procedural vote failed, Speaker Mike Johnson would have faced immediate pressure to cut the House session short and send members home ahead of next week’s GOP midterm convention in Dallas. With the government now funded through the midterms and no other pressing deadlines to meet before November, GOP leaders could still scrap some or all of the remaining September session weeks to allow members to campaign in their districts.
The House cleared a stopgap funding patch Tuesday to keep cash flowing to federal agencies until mid-December — preventing a government shutdown before Election Day and setting up two major policy battles at year’s end.
The 370-48 vote takes care of Speaker Mike Johnson’s last must-pass bill before the midterms. But swift passage comes at a cost for House GOP leaders, who are now managing blowback from Republicans angry about the contents of the funding patch Senate leaders crafted and President Donald Trump endorsed.
The legislation would fund the government beyond the October start of the new fiscal year, keeping federal agencies running on current budgets through Dec. 11. It also allows incumbents to campaign for reelection without the threat of a government shutdown feeding into political messaging about dysfunction in Washington.
“We want to get a longer-term deal. But at a minimum, let’s ensure that we can continue to see government properly funded and functioning,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters Tuesday, noting the “chaos” and “uncertainty” of last year’s record-breaking shutdown.
Besides funding the government through mid-December, the bill would temporarily block the White House from finalizing a rule to put political appointees in charge of approving federal grants.
It would also delay a ban set to kick in next month on intoxicating hemp products — to the dissatisfaction of House hard-liners, who threatened to vote Tuesday afternoon against teeing up debate on other bills this week and potentially block any significant House floor action between now and November.
Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, chair of the Freedom Caucus, was among the Republicans who voted no on the funding patch and said he would oppose moving forward with debate on other bills too. He scoffed at the last-minute pressure campaign from the White House and hemp industry leaders promising to regulate intoxicating products in lieu of proceeding with the ban lawmakers enacted last November.
“They had 10 months,” Harris said in an interview this week, knocking the Trump administration for not taking action sooner to crack down on the products currently sold in the U.S. without age restrictions or other regulations. “There are profiteers who are making money on basically the health of our children, and I object to that.”
Trump is expected to sign the funding patch, which the White House endorsed last month ahead of Senate passage — even though it blocks the Office of Management and Budget from finalizing its controversial rule to overhaul the federal grantmaking approval process.
That Senate-added language, as well as a prohibition on new funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, drove significant support from House Democrats.
“This critically stops the OMB rule from proceeding forward that many of us have been pushing against,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said Tuesday, cheering other “incredibly helpful” additions to the bare-bones stopgap House Republicans initially passed earlier this summer.
Democrats also hope to regain control of the House and Senate in the November elections and increase their leverage in December negotiations on government funding for the rest of the fiscal year.
“That’s the huge intervening event,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole said this week about the election. “And it will impact whatever comes after it, no matter what anybody thinks. So it’s not like we’ll go back and pick up exactly where we left off.”
The Oklahoma Republican traveled to Ukraine and other European countries last month with his counterpart across the aisle, top committee Democrat Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut.
The two top appropriators are motivated to strike a year-end deal to fund federal agencies with updated budgets, Cole said, rather than clearing another short stopgap or resorting to a lengthy patch that keeps programs on autopilot through next September
“We both are pretty adamant that we need to get these bills done before the end of the calendar year,” Cole said, adding that he and DeLauro will be “working really hard once we know who the players are on the other side” of Election Day.
Everton Blair was sworn in to the House Tuesday, adding another Democrat to the closely divided chamber. Blair won a special election this month to replace the late Georgia Rep. David Scott, a former chair of the House Agriculture Committee. Another Democratic winner of a recent special election, Aisha Wahab of California, is scheduled to be sworn in tomorrow to replace former Rep. Eric Swalwell, according to a person familiar with the plan.
With the two Democrats sworn and voting, Speaker Mike Johnson will be able to lose only one Republican on party-line votes.
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