Congress
If Congress is going to avoid another shutdown, lawmakers need to start talking
Congress has adjourned for the holidays having made no tangible progress toward funding the government ahead of a shutdown looming less than six weeks away.
The most conspicuous sign that Congress faces real obstacles before the Jan. 30 funding deadline came late Thursday, when Senate leaders gave up on passing a spending package and sent members home for two weeks, despite working for more than a month to appease senators who had objections.
But the impediments to reaching a deal that can pass both chambers are more extensive, starting with the fact that Republicans and Democrats on both ends of the Capitol have yet to start negotiating the details of the nine pending funding bills. The lack of bipartisan offer-trading is raising the likelihood of another short-term punt — or another shutdown.
“We wasted a lot of time because the Senate’s not negotiating yet,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in an interview last week. “When they’re ready to negotiate, we can move fast.”
Cole and his counterpart, Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), just reached an agreement over the weekend on overall totals for the remaining spending bills Congress needs to pass. Lawmakers already passed three as part of the package that ended the shutdown last month — funding veterans and agriculture agencies, federal food aid and the Food and Drug Administration, along with Congress itself, through Sept. 30.
For more than a month Cole and Collins had been trying to bridge differences on key numbers while Senate leaders tried to advance a funding package that reflects consensus from only their side of the Capitol. Last week’s heave failed, but senators expect to try again in early January.
“We have different dynamics in our caucuses that we need to deal with,” Collins said this month as she left a meeting with Cole.
Democrats have been growing impatient. “They wasted all that time during the summer,” said Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the House’s top Democratic appropriator, about House Republicans spending the better part of this year crafting partisan funding bills.
Then Democrats had to wait for their GOP counterparts to strike the “majority to majority” deal on funding totals that finally arrived Saturday.
“Democrats are prepared. We’re ready to move. Let’s go,” DeLauro said.
Even if top appropriators can manage to agree on the nine remaining funding bills, other thorny dynamics threaten to complicate final passage in each chamber. The pitfalls include the mismatch between what appropriators want to spend and the demands of House fiscal hawks seeking flat funding for agencies — as well as the fact that Democrats will need to help pass any spending bills in the Senate, as they acutely illustrated with this fall’s record 43-day shutdown.
The totals top Republican appropriators just agreed upon are not public. But Cole said the deal will ensure overall funding would be below the level laid out in the stopgap funding patch enacted last month.
Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, chair of the House Freedom Caucus and a top Republican appropriator, said last week that he wants funding for the Pentagon and the largest nondefense agencies to be “no more than what was enacted” for the fiscal year that ended in September.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) has the same idea: “I don’t want any spending higher than current-level spending,” he said. “If they’re busting the current levels, then they’re going to have to demonstrate to me why.”
If House hard-liners aren’t appeased when the funding bills come together, they could start making threats to Speaker Mike Johnson and other GOP leaders, who already are on the outs with House Republicans over their handling of health care assistance this month.
“You can expect the smoke to start coming up from over that hill and that hill and that hill,” said Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), who chairs the Homeland Security spending panel. “And there might even be some open flame.”
Amodei said some of his colleagues are openly talking about the potential for another shutdown. But many others think it is more likely that Congress is headed for another punt at current funding levels for the remaining nine bills.
Last week, Johnson told his conference in a closed-door meeting that he wants to pass those bills by the Jan. 30 deadline — a goal that many in the GOP ranks consider aspirational at best. One House Republican granted anonymity to describe the private meeting said he turned to one of his colleagues and whispered, “I wouldn’t bet on that on Polymarket,” referring to an online prediction market.
Senate leaders have their own conflicting demands to manage. Fiscal conservatives repeatedly objected to starting debate on a five-bill funding package in recent weeks, citing opposition to earmarks as they also sought promises related to other legislation.
But it was Democrats who blocked movement in the final days before the Senate adjourned Thursday. One late-breaking demand by Colorado’s senators was to reverse the White House’s move last week to dismantle a federal center in the state that supports research in climate and weather science.
Still, following the acrimony of the shutdown this fall, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Majority Leader John Thune are at least projecting a unified front on government funding ahead of the January deadline.
“Both Thune and I are in agreement that we’re going to work through the process and get the appropriations bills done,” Schumer told reporters late Thursday after Senate leaders decided to adjourn without passing the funding package.
Since top Republican appropriators reached an agreement on overall totals after Congress adjourned, lawmakers hope some negotiating can be done before they return to town Jan. 5.
“Staff has been instructed to — whatever they’re doing — take their laptops with them,” DeLauro said.
When Congress reconvenes, both chambers are only scheduled to be in session for three weeks before the shutdown deadline — with the House slated to be out of session the week immediately before.
Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Republican appropriator, said he was hopeful his party’s leaders would keep lawmakers in town to pass any deal that might come together.
“This is people’s political livelihood on the line,” he said. “We’ve got to get this done. Nobody leaves.”
Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.
Rep. Max Miller issued a subpoena to his former father-in-law and fellow Ohio Republican, Sen. Bernie Moreno, in the latest escalation of a long-running family legal drama.
Pamela MacAdams, an attorney for Miller, reported to the Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court Monday that three subpoenas were served in Miller’s divorce case, according to court records. A person with knowledge of the subpoenas granted anonymity to comment on them said that two were sent to Moreno and his wife, Bridget.
Their daughter, Emily Moreno, was married to Miller, and the two remain embroiled in a nasty legal battle.
Spokespeople for Miller, Emily Moreno and Bernie Moreno did not immediately return requests for comment. TMZ first reported on the subpoenas.
Miller is seeking reelection in a competitive district, and his campaign has been marred by accusations of domestic abuse against Emily Moreno and their daughter. Miller has repeatedly denied the allegations and chose to remain in the race despite other Republican lawmakers pressuring him to withdraw his campaign.
The House Ethics Committee, which began an inquiry into Miller after Miller asked to be investigated, is currently in a preelection blackout period. During that period, which will continue through the midterms, the Ethics Committee doesn’t take any action against sitting members who could return next Congress.
Congress
Trump declares $1B canceled in ‘pocket rescission’ in another affront to Congress’ funding power
President Donald Trump informed congressional leaders Friday that he has unilaterally canceled almost $1 billion without Congress’ consent — employing a budget maneuver many lawmakers consider illegal.
In a move that will almost certainly set up an ugly government funding battle after the midterms, Trump has again claimed the power to execute a so-called “pocket rescission” to nix money Congress has already enacted. The money his administration will claw back is for for immigration services, support to foreign countries, education programs, health research efforts and assistance for businesses owned by minorities.
By law, the president is allowed to send Congress a request to rescind federal funding, then withhold that money for 45 days while lawmakers consider whether to approve, reject or ignore it. Trump administration officials also argue they have the power to cancel funding without any congressional action by sending Congress a rescission request with less than 45 days left in the fiscal year. The argument is that the money automatically gets canceled on Sept. 30, when funding lapses at the end of the fiscal year.
Last year, Trump canceled $4.9 billion in foreign aid.
The Senate’s top Republican appropriator, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, immediately blasted the move as illegal, saying in a statement Friday night that “any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.”
“This move shows that OMB intentionally withheld these funds for months to execute this unlawful cancellation of appropriations that were approved on a bipartisan basis and signed into law,” Collins added, pledging to work with other lawmakers “to address these illegal actions.”
Collins and other appropriators have already been on high alert in recent days, pressing multiple agencies about funding officials have yet to spend ahead of the expiration date.
Democrats are finally catching on to how to talk to young male voters in the lead-up to the midterms, but the party can still up its game, one battleground senator and potential 2028er said Friday.
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) has been one of his party’s most outspoken critics on its handling of outreach to young men, who swung right and helped deliver the White House and both chambers of Congress to Republicans in 2024.
The party is now “definitely moving in the right direction,” Gallego said Friday.
“Like back in the day, I was like the only one,” putting out positions on men, Gallego said at a Washington event on young American men. “Now, like, it seems like everyone every week is coming out with a new position, new idea, which is great.”
Gallego has criticized Democrat’s failure to highlight mens’ struggles and their tendency to over-police mens’ ideas. But there are signs the political winds have shifted in his party’s favor.
A new Cygnal poll released with the event of men ages 18-30 who say they’re the most determined to vote revealed Democrats’ generic ballot lead over Republicans at 57%-40%, Blue Light News reported. The poll also said nearly 40 percent of respondents said they feel their lives are off track.
“We need to take the opportunity to invest in that portion of this country, to say that we care about them and actually try to change the trajectory of what’s happening with men in this country,” Gallego said at the symposium.
Still, the path for specific legislation targeting the needs of this demographic faces an incredibly tight calendar this Congress and is uncertain in the political landscape of next year.
A proposal from Gallego and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) to establish a men’s health office within the Department of Health and Human Services, for example, has not advanced. Nor has bipartisan legislation from Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who also spoke at the event, targeting education outcomes, college investment transparency and dyslexic student support.
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