{"id":11953,"date":"2025-08-02T14:02:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T14:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/on-the-senates-kumbaya-committee-john-kennedy-is-suddenly-singing-off-key\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T14:02:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T14:02:18","slug":"on-the-senates-kumbaya-committee-john-kennedy-is-suddenly-singing-off-key","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/on-the-senates-kumbaya-committee-john-kennedy-is-suddenly-singing-off-key\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Senate\u2019s \u2018Kumbaya\u2019 committee, John Kennedy is suddenly singing off-key"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

As chair of the Senate appropriations subcommittee overseeing energy and water programs, Sen. John Kennedy<\/a> is among the rarefied group of \u201ccardinals\u201d \u2014 the 12 gavel-holders who tend to take a clubby, I-scratch-your-back-you-scratch-mine approach to the trillion-dollar government funding process they manage each year.<\/p>\n

Lately, though, Kennedy has hardly been acting like one of the gang.<\/p>\n

The Louisiana Republican has accused the Senate of \u201cplayacting\u201d through this year\u2019s bipartisan spending talks \u2014 a process, he says, that is actually as \u201cdead as Jimmy Hoffa.\u201d This past week, he contributed to a days-long holdup on an initial package of fiscal 2026 spending bills \u2014 insisting he get a chance to vote against funding for Congress itself.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s flirting with a second act this fall, delaying his own bill to fund energy and water programs as he pushes for a spending cut. He\u2019s also drawing red lines that could leave a separate bill funding the Interior Department<\/a> hanging in limbo.<\/p>\n

Kennedy\u2019s assessment that the government funding process is \u201cbroken\u201d isn\u2019t playing well with colleagues. That includes Sen. Patty Murray<\/a> of Washington, the top Appropriations Democrat and a veteran of hard-nosed partisan fiscal negotiations.<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s breaking it,\u201d Murray said in a brief interview.<\/p>\n

As Kennedy tells it, his colleagues need to accept reality: Washington will be running on short-term spending patches, known as continuing resolutions, for the foreseeable future given the political hurdles to any workable agreement between President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere hasn\u2019t been a point for a while,\u201d Kennedy said in an interview about the government funding process. Hence, he says, the \u201cplayacting.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s bleak talk for someone best known around Capitol Hill for his entertaining if sometimes contradictory approach to lawmaking.<\/p>\n

A Rhodes Scholar skilled in dealing out down-home aphorisms to congressional reporters, he\u2019s gaining a new reputation as a persistent headache for GOP leaders when it comes to government spending \u2014 and as an odd fit on a panel that is typically home to pragmatic senators who band together to cut deals even if they don\u2019t love every piece.<\/p>\n

By no means is he the only member on the committee who has thrown up roadblocks. Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen<\/a>, for instance, forced leadership to drop its plan to include a bill funding the departments of Commerce and Justice<\/a> over Trump\u2019s move to cancel plans for relocating FBI headquarters to his home state of Maryland.<\/p>\n

But Van Hollen and others with parochial concerns haven\u2019t questioned the bipartisan appropriations process itself, and even Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> exhibited surprise at Kennedy\u2019s broadsides.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just going to do what we can to get the appropriations process moving again, and that\u2019s something we haven\u2019t had here in quite a while,\u201d Thune said. \u201cSo there\u2019s a lot of muscle memory we\u2019re trying to engage.\u201d\u201d<\/p>\n

The Senate is \u201ctrying to find a sweet spot,\u201d Thune added.<\/p>\n

Kennedy ultimately reached a deal with leadership this week to get a separate vote on funding for Congress. He said he wanted to be able to vote against the Legislative Branch bill<\/a> without having to oppose a two-bill package focused on the departments of Veterans Affairs<\/a> and Agriculture<\/a>. He\u2019s angling to make a similar protest vote against the bill funding the Department of Interior and environmental projects, which would complicate Thune putting it in a second spending package that he wants to bring to the floor next month.<\/p>\n

But Kennedy\u2019s position frustrated colleagues who say he didn\u2019t articulate any policy concern with the congressional funding bill beyond believing it spent too much money. And his willingness to take a verbal sledgehammer to the Senate\u2019s talks is grating on some fellow Republicans who are straining to keep them on track.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we’re seeing is different, and I don’t know why,\u201d Sen. Lisa Murkowski<\/a> (R-Alaska) said about recent tactics from Kennedy and other senators. \u201cWhen I came on the Appropriations Committee, it was kind of like an unspoken rule, if you will \u2014 that we would be there to not only support the Republican bills, but as appropriators, we kind of held together \u2026 and we made the process work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don’t have that right now, which is unfortunate,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Besides publicly badmouthing the bipartisan process, Kennedy made other moves to rankle his Appropriations colleagues \u2014 starting with his vocal support for Trump\u2019s pursuit of \u201crescissions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those spending clawbacks essentially serve to undo the spending panel\u2019s work. Not only did Kennedy vote for a first $9 billion package last month, he has also been backchanneling with White House budget director Russ Vought about additional requests.<\/p>\n

Democrats, and some Republicans, are warning that would blow up the appropriations process, but Kennedy called it \u201cnaive\u201d to think if the White House held off that Democrats would want to \u201cshare a cup of hot cocoa and a hug with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, his frequent claim that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer<\/a> is responsible for breaking the government funding process has particularly rankled Democrats. Sen. Brian Schatz<\/a> of Hawaii, who is on the Appropriations Committee and likely to be Schumer\u2019s next No. 2, said the idea that \u201cyou’re going to blame the Democratic leader, and you control both chambers and the presidency, is plainly goofy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he wants to vote no on his own bill, I suppose he’s entitled to do that. It’s a little weird, but he’s entitled to do it,\u201d Schatz said. \u201cBut there’s no reason he should block the Senate from considering the legislation that he’s presumably helped to craft.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a reference to the ongoing standoff Kennedy\u2019s in with Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins<\/a> of Maine over the energy and water bill, which last year directed nearly $60 billion in annual taxpayer spending \u2014 much of it on the nation\u2019s nuclear weapons program.<\/p>\n

Collins and Murray agreed on a topline spending number for the bill Kennedy oversees. But the Louisianan wants to go lower \u2014 something Democrats consider to be a breach of the overall bipartisan agreement on the committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because Patty gives me a number doesn\u2019t mean I have to accept her number. She\u2019s got one vote, and I\u2019ve got one vote,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Murray, who is also the top Democrat on Kennedy\u2019s subcommittee, said she is working with Collins on a plan to advance that bill out of committee over Kennedy\u2019s insistence that it include less funding than the panel\u2019s leaders have prescribed.<\/p>\n

Kennedy credited Collins with \u201cdoing the best she can.\u201d But he said he wants to cut spending and rated the chances of that happening through the bipartisan spending process as about as high as the likelihood that \u201cdonkeys may fly someday, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last Congress, he recalled, panel leaders made the case that Senate appropriators needed to \u201ccome together\u201d and \u201csing \u2018Kumbaya\u2019 and \u2018We Are the World.\u201d The pitch hasn\u2019t changed this year, he said \u2014 he\u2019s just unmoved.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love \u2018We Are the World,\u2019 it\u2019s a beautiful song,\u201d Kennedy added. \u201cBut it\u2019s not reality.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As chair of the Senate appropriations subcommittee overseeing energy and water programs, Sen. John Kennedy is among the rarefied group of \u201ccardinals\u201d \u2014 the 12 gavel-holders who tend to take a clubby, I-scratch-your-back-you-scratch-mine approach to the trillion-dollar government funding process they manage each year. Lately, though, Kennedy has hardly been acting like one of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}