WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders have canceled next week’s work session and sent lawmakers home for a six-week summer recess with little they can brag about to constituents and voters heading into the final months before the election.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and his leadership team had hoped to pass all 12 bills that fund the government before the long August recess, setting up negotiations with the Democratic-led Senate on how to keep the government open ahead of a shutdown deadline on Sept. 30.
But that goal now looks out of reach with the House not returning until Sept. 9, leaving just three weeks to avert a shutdown. The House has already passed five funding bills and had planned to take up four more this week. But leaders managed to push through only one of them — focused on the Department of Interior — and yanked three others over intraparty disputes and the GOP’s minuscule three-seat majority.
“They can’t pass their own bills. They haven’t been able to pass their own bills all Congress. This is nothing new,” said Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla.
Both the House and Senate need to pass all 12 bills to fund the government for the 2025 fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1. A stopgap funding bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR, to temporarily keep the lights on is now likely with the election fast approaching.
The House’s final vote before departing town on Thursday was a non-binding GOP messaging bill, strongly condemning “border czar” Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s likely presidential nominee, for failing to secure the border. A half dozen vulnerable Democrats joined all Republicans in voting yes.
“Extreme MAGA Republicans have been in the majority for over 18 months. Can anyone name a single thing that extreme MAGA Republicans in the House have done in order to make life better for the American people? … You can’t,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters, nodding to a fiery floor speech from GOP Rep. Chip Roy last fall where he lamented that there was not “one thing” Republicans could campaign on.
“They are incapable of governing,” Jeffries added.
Perhaps the most significant piece of legislation passed by Congress this year was the $95.3 billion emergency supplemental that sent a fresh infusion of military aid to a trio of allies: Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Johnson shepherded that package through the House in April, and attached legislation that would force the Chinese owner of TikTok to sell the popular video-sharing app after the election or risk a ban in the United States. Biden signed it into law.
That same month, Johnson also secured the renewal of a powerful U.S. surveillance program — known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA — despite objections from his right flank. And the House overwhelmingly passed a $78 billion tax package — negotiated by Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., and Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore. — that includes an expansion of the child tax credit, though it’s held up in the Senate.
Asked about the stalled government funding process, Athina Lawson, a spokesperson for the speaker, pointed out the House has made more progress on its appropriations, or funding, bills than the Senate.
“The House has made significant progress in advancing FY25 appropriations bills. The House Appropriations Committee has diligently moved all 12 bills out of committee and the House has passed 75% of government funding for the upcoming fiscal year while the Senate has yet to even consider a single appropriations bill,” Lawson said. “The House will continue its successful effort to responsibly fund the government for FY25 when it returns from its district work period.”
Republicans had hoped to pass all 12 bills early to avoid another stopgap bill or, worse, getting jammed up with a massive omnibus funding bill by the Senate right at the deadline.
Roy, a Texas Republican and Freedom Caucus member, said the House “should have gotten all of them passed … before we left town.” But this time, he said Democrats were also to blame: “Talk to the Senate, talk to the White House.”
GOP Policy Chairman Gary Palmer, R-Ala., a member of Johnson’s leadership team, also lamented that more progress wasn’t made on the spending bills.
“Well, I’m disappointed we didn’t have all of them done by June 30,” Palmer said as he left the Capitol on Thursday. When then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted last fall, Palmer said, Republicans “needed to change the rules and put some real enforcement measures in place” to get the bills done sooner.
“We ignore the schedule because there’s no enforcement,” he added. “You’ve got to have consequences for not getting things done.”
Separately, the Senate next week is poised to pass a pair of popular bipartisan bills aimed at protecting children online, including from social media companies. But with the House now gone, the lower chamber won’t take them up until September at the earliest and possibly not until the lame-duck session after the Nov. 5 election.
Johnson has expressed general support for the children’s privacy bills.
“Obviously, I believe in the purpose of the legislation,” he said. “I think it’s really important but there’s a couple of questions we have about the details, but I think we can work it out and I’d like to get it done.
As they left for recess, Jeffries’ message of GOP chaos and dysfunction was echoed by rank-and-file Democrats, including some members who are facing tough re-election bids this fall.
“This is the exact type of chaos and do-nothing Congress that I fully believe the American people are going to reject in 2024,” said freshman Rep. Hillary Scholten, D-Mich. “We have to pass these appropriations bills. We have to do the farm bill, we have to get something done on immigration. The American people know it, they feel it. And this type of chaos is just not gonna stand.”
Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., argued that much of what House Republicans have done this Congress is use their majority and oversight powers to beat up on President Joe Biden, and now direct their attacks at his likely replacement at the top of the ticket.
“The Republicans spent the majority of this Congress on a completely bogus impeachment investigation of President Biden where they found no evidence of wrongdoing, much less any high crime or misdemeanor,” Goldman told reporters. “And as soon as he drops out, and Vice President Harris becomes the presumptive nominee, now all of a sudden all of their attention and their floor time is focused on sullying her up with false accusations.”
“It’s just continuing to use the official authority and official resources of Congress for partisan political electoral purposes, which is improper,” Goldman continued, “but it has been what the Republicans have done all term long, and it is the only thing that they can actually get passed.”
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