Congress is back in town.
Lawmakers begin their lame-duck session today and are facing a Dec. 20 funding deadline ahead of the holidays and the swearing in of the 119th Congress in January.
Republicans, bolstered by President-elect Trump’s win and their gains in both the House and Senate last week, are anxious to turn the page and move on to next year.
Although California is still counting ballots, Republicans are projected to keep control of the House, handing the party total control of Washington, according to Decision Desk HQ. It would be a win for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who skyrocketed up from obscurity to lead the House GOP not only legislatively, but also in a large role in its campaign infrastructure. He will address reporters this morning.
Democrats, meanwhile, are hoping to get in as many of their priorities as possible while they hold control of the Senate.
Top of the to-do list for both parties is funding the government to keep the lights on in Washington, but with Republicans having gained uniform control, GOP lawmakers are eyeing a temporary measure that would fund the government into March, well into Trump’s second term, The Washington Post reports.
The extension would allow the Senate to begin to confirm Cabinet members, and the House could focus on tax legislation — a major issue facing lawmakers in 2025. And with only 20 planned working days until Dec. 20, aides said a stopgap bill could be the only viable way forward.
Still, Democrats will be key in passing any funding legislation. Already facing a narrow House majority, the GOP’s final-tally edge could shrink from its current number, and Republicans’ majority in the Senate is too small to bypass a filibuster.
“As I’ve said time and again, in both the majority and the minority, the only way to get things done in the Senate is through bipartisan legislation while maintaining our principles — and the next two years will be no different,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.
▪ The Hill: Leaders of the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus went rogue with parliamentary procedure on the House floor while the world was looking the other way on Election Day, raising questions about whether its chair will face any repercussions from House GOP leadership.
▪ The Hill: The pressure campaign being waged by allies of Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) to boost his chances to become the next Republican leader is having a boomerang effect, as it has increasingly antagonized GOP senators and could doom his already dim odds in the race.
▪ The New York Times: Trump’s allies are pushing him to torpedo GOP Whip John Thune’s (S.D.) bid to become the next Senate Republican leader.
Senate Republicans are celebrating their new majority, but they will be confronted with hard questions over how much leeway to give Trump and whether to stand up to him if he crosses the line, The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports. If Senate Republicans let Trump walk all over them, it could put their power at serious risk in 2026.
Trump is already testing the loyalty of his skeptics in the upper chamber by calling on them to allow him to make recess appointments to the executive and judicial branches without the advice and consent of the Senate. Senate Republicans are also bracing for Trump to pardon many of the people convicted of Jan. 6, 2021-related crimes, a step that a number of GOP senators who lived through the Capitol riot would not approve of.
And the president-elect has threatened to impose steep tariffs on imports that many GOP lawmakers worry would hurt the economy.
“If legislators get out of line, he will threaten to support a primary challenge to them in two years,” said Darrell West, a senior fellow specializing in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. “That threat will quiet many possible critics.”
Then there are taxes: But the vast majority of Senate Republicans agree with Trump on the biggest legislative agenda item on the table — extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Trump’s win is setting up a fight between Republicans who want to cut taxes and those who want to rein in the deficit, writes The Hill’s Tobias Burns. In addition to wanting to extend his 2017 tax cut law at a potential price tag of about $4.6 trillion, Trump promised a host of specific tax cuts while on the campaign trail, totaling as much as $15.5 trillion. Now Republicans are jockeying for position on how far they want to go with additional tax cuts that could expand the national debt.
GOP leaders expect a tax cut bill to be the party’s first legislative priority and defended Trump’s 2017 bill despite its steep price tag.
“We thought it was a huge success,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said at a press conference last week. “It produced more revenue than less, and I’m sure virtually all of us would like to see most of that extended.”