Lawmakers are set to return to Capitol Hill on Monday for their final session before adjourning ahead of the November election, when a new president will be chosen, and control of Congress will be on the line.
The House and Senate will reconvene after a six-week hiatus, coming back to a lengthy to-do list paired with looming deadlines at the end of the month. Additionally, lawmakers are staring down several newly opened investigations they hope to make significant progress on before they return home in October.
Here’s a look at what Congress will be focusing on during their three-week stint in September:
Lawmakers scramble to finalize spending deal ahead of funding deadline
Congress has until the end of September to pass its annual budget before the new fiscal year begins on Oct. 1. If not, the government will enter a shutdown until some sort of spending deal has passed — a fate some GOP lawmakers are openly flirting with.
Budget disagreements typically drag out as both parties fight to include their own priorities, with a final deal often not made until the eleventh hour after a marathon voting session. And even then, the deal often fails to solve the problem but rather punts the deadline until later in the year.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) unveiled his plan to fund the government in a call with House Republicans last week, proposing to extend the funding deadline for fiscal 2025 until March of next year. The six-month continuing resolution would extend the funding levels for fiscal 2024. Still, it would not include the “side deals” negotiated by President Joe Biden and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) last summer that were included in last year’s budget.
The stopgap bill would also attach the SAVE Act, a bill being pushed by Johnson and former President Donald Trump that would require proof of citizenship for voter registration — a policy rider that is likely dead on arrival in the Democratic-led Senate.
Johnson told lawmakers he wants to vote on the spending legislation “as soon as possible,” a lawmaker on the call told the Washington Examiner, teeing it up for a vote as early as this week. House leaders are expected to begin whipping support for the bill Monday, another lawmaker said.
However, some House Republicans expect the continuing resolution to be returned by the Senate without the SAVE Act attached — resulting in a clean extension of funding levels without any policy riders. That clean continuing resolution, they countered, might be the only way to avoid a government shutdown.
The proposal to delay a spending deal until next year comes as Johnson faces pressure from those on his right flank to ensure Democrats cannot use Biden’s final months in a lame-duck period to push through a massive spending bill that advances the party’s agenda. Instead, the group wants to delay the process until next year after they hope Trump is sworn in for a second term.
That could put Johnson in a position to depend on Democratic votes to help him pass a clean continuing resolution that could clear the Senate and get signed by the president to keep the government running. It is reminiscent of last year’s spending fight when McCarthy advanced a clean spending deal with Democratic support, leading to his ouster just weeks later.
House leaders initially planned to pass all 12 of their appropriations bills before adjourning in late July, an ambitious goal they failed to meet due to intraparty disagreement. Instead, the House only managed to pass five, with the others either failing on the floor or being pulled from consideration because of a lack of support.
The Senate has not passed any.
House Republicans look to push through key agenda items
Meanwhile, House Republicans are set to focus on other legislative items they hope will unite the GOP conference and serve as campaign fodder when they return home next month.
While on the call last week, Johnson laid out a proposed schedule to advance bills countering China and dealing with border security, two lawmakers on the call told the Washington Examiner.
The House Rules Committee is scheduled to begin consideration of five bills related to foreign policy and China when they reconvene Monday, according to a schedule sent out last week. The bills include proposals to protect U.S. innovation and economic security from the Chinese government, establish funding restrictions for colleges and universities that have relationships with Confucius Institutes, and protect U.S. agriculture from foreign adversaries, among other things.
It’s not yet clear what border-related bills will be considered during the three-week session, and nothing has been publicly noticed on the calendar.
House GOP holds Harris and Walz under the microscope
House Republicans will also spend much of their remaining time in session investigating Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), ahead of the November election.
After being confirmed as the Democratic ticket, GOP lawmakers were quick to open a slew of investigations into the pair after quietly shifting their focus away from Biden. There are at least four House committee investigations into the Democratic pair, ranging from Harris’s role in border security to Walz’s personal connections to China.
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Other House committees tasked with investigating the president have begun referring to the White House as the “Biden-Harris administration” to blame the new Democratic nominee for unpopular policies. For example, the House Judiciary is scheduled to hold a hearing on Tuesday titled the “Biden-Harris border crisis.”
Harris also faces an impeachment effort from Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), who is seeking to charge the vice president with high crimes and misdemeanors due to “extraordinary incompetence in the execution of her duties and responsibilities” related to immigration. Ogles filed his impeachment articles in July, although it’s unclear if they’ll be brought to the floor before Congress adjourns in October.
