Congress
Vance gives hard sell for spending patch to House Republicans
Vice President JD Vance told House Republicans hours ahead of an expected vote on a seven-month funding patch on Tuesday that Republicans will take the blame for a government shutdown if they don’t pass the legislation, according to three people who were in the room for the comments.
Vance emphasized that Republicans had little room for dissent given the tight margin in the House. Government funding is set to expire at midnight Friday, and a handful of GOP members have yet to commit to the stopgap put forward by Speaker Mike Johnson and endorsed by President Donald Trump.
“We already lost one vote, we can’t lose another,” Vance said, according to the people, who were granted anonymity to describe a private meeting. That one vote belongs to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has said he is firmly against the plan.
Vance told House Republicans they need to vote for the GOP funding bill to clear the runway for the massive domestic policy bill Republicans are now in the process of assembling, the people added. By failing to pass the stopgap, Vance added, Republicans will lose momentum on securing the border and lose credibility with voters.
He also assured Republican members that Trump would continue cutting federal funding with his Department of Government Efficiency initiative and pursue impoundment — that is, holding back money appropriated by Congress.
Johnson said in a brief interview leaving the meeting that Vance’s message was “very well-received” but added that he thinks most GOP members have already made their decisions.
Asked about the planned 4 p.m. vote, Johnson said he believes there’s only “one or two” true holdouts left.
The Senate on Monday overwhelmingly passed a long-awaited bipartisan housing bill, which is expected to set the legislation on a glide path to President Donald Trump’s desk for signature as soon as this week.
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which passed 85-5 and contains almost 60 individual provisions, aims to tackle housing affordability and boost housing supply and homeownership. Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) voted “no.”
The legislation now moves on to the House, which could take up the bill for final passage as soon as Tuesday.
The legislation has become a pillar of Congress’ overall response to affordability concerns that have emerged as a key issue this midterm election year.
Despite broad, bipartisan support for the bill in both the House and Senate, the two chambers went back and forth on the legislation for months. Primary friction points developed over language establishing new restrictions on large Wall Street investors purchasing single-family homes, a ban on the Federal Reserve issuing a digital currency and a slate of community banking deregulation initiatives, among other measures.
The bill was able to move forward last week after the four lawmakers leading the legislation — Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and ranking member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) and ranking member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) — came to an agreement. The White House also announced support for the final version of the bill, which contains Trump’s top priority of limiting Wall Street’s footprint in the housing market.
Sen. Mitch McConnell will not return to the Senate this week, a spokesperson for the Kentucky Republican said Monday.
“Senator McConnell is still working closely with staff on Senate business and Kentucky matters as he continues his recovery. However, he will not be voting this week,” said the spokesperson, David Popp.
McConnell’s ongoing absence means planned Senate Appropriations Committee markups scheduled for later this week will be canceled, according to a committee aide who was granted anonymity to speak ahead of a formal announcement.
The former GOP leader was hospitalized earlier this month for undisclosed reasons and missed votes last week. The Senate is set to start a two-week recess later this week.
House Republican appropriators are publicly rebuking the Trump administration for seeking must-have military cash through a party-line reconciliation bill that’s not guaranteed to clear Congress.
In a report they plan to release later this week, obtained by Blue Light News, House appropriators warn that the White House is trying to fund “critical efforts” like weapons and military equipment through the party-line process, rather than using it to “scale up” military dollars beyond Congress’ regular government funding bills.
“This approach is risky and uncoordinated,” reads the report, an official addendum that goes along with the chamber’s defense funding bill for the fiscal year that starts in October.
In particular, appropriators criticized President Donald Trump’s budget request for splitting funding for the F-35 fighter, the most expensive program in Pentagon history, between the two bills.
The annual government funding bills and the reconciliation process are “entirely separate tracks, with different timelines, committees of jurisdiction, and approval processes,” the report notes.
Many Republican lawmakers are also doubtful GOP leaders will succeed in enacting another party-line package this year.
Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
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