The House of Representatives began its summer recess early, a five-week period during which lawmakers return to their home towns to discuss local issues and run for re-election.
They are due to return on September 9th, just three weeks after funding to the government is due for next financial year.
That means the Republican-controlled House must compromise with the Democratic-controlled Senate or risk a partial government shutdown, with some federal agencies shuttered and thousands of federal workers furloughed.
At this point, it is almost certain that a short-term extension of current year funding, known as a “continuing solution” (CR), will be needed to avoid a partial shutdown.
Biden withdraws from 2024 rematch with Trump, ends bid for second term in White House
Congress will face a fierce funding fight when lawmakers return in September. (iStock)
“I’ve always said we need to get a CR done,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters earlier this week, “And whoever wins the election gets to make the decision. Do they want a deal done by the end of the year or do they want to push it off until the next Congress? Whoever wins, my advice would be to get it done by the end of the year.”
House Republican leaders had laid out an ambitious plan to finish 12 individual budget bills before the recess, but their momentum was thwarted by party disagreements over where Republicans should start.
Republican rebels pushed through a spending bill packed with culture-war amendments on issues like gender reassignment surgery and abortion, asserting it was the right of the Republican majority to exert force from the most conservative of starting points.
But rank-and-file Republicans worried about being forced to cast a politically unpopular vote on a bill that had no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate and would never become law anyway.
So far, six of the 12 bills have passed the House, but none have passed the Senate.
Trump says Biden ‘unfit to be president’: ‘Who’s going to run the country for the next five months?’
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole said a stopgap funding bill would likely be needed. (Getty Images)
The main debate when lawmakers return in September will likely be what the length of the CR will be and what riders, if any, will be attached.
Allies of former President Trump have been calling for the CR to be extended into the new year in the hopes that Republicans will retake the White House and the Senate, but leading Republican lawmakers have expressed concern that doing so would add unnecessary drama to what is already expected to be an action-packed first 100 days of the new administration.
Some of President Trump’s supporters have called for combining the CR with the Protecting American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act), a Republican-backed bill that would add a proof of citizenship requirement to the voter registration process.
“We’ve been meeting every week for months since Speaker Johnson passed a two-part omnibus bill in May to fully fund the Biden/Harris Administration’s programs. For what? For messaging? When the reality we all know is that we have no choice but to vote on CR before the government is funded by September 30th,” Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X.
“And since we all know the CR is coming, you would think we would be working on an impactful CR, for example attaching the SAVE Act, because the election is important. But that’s not the case. We’re going to vote at 9 o’clock tonight on a bill that will never see the light of day in the Schumer Senate.”
Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign raises nearly $50 million within hours of Biden’s endorsement
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to attach an elections bill supported by President Trump to the tentative funding agreement. (Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But in comments to reporters earlier this week, Cole suggested he wasn’t keen on the idea.
Click here to get the FOX News app
“I haven’t really thought about it yet, and it’s not a big deal to me, but if it doesn’t get through the Senate, it’s not going to be an effective CR,” Cole said. “So a real CR is more interested in disaster relief. I think this is an issue that both sides can work on.”
When asked earlier this week to comment on Republican frustration with the spending process, a spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, told Fox News Digital, “The House has made great progress moving forward on the FY25 budget. The House Appropriations Committee has worked hard to move all 12 bills out of committee, the House has passed 75% of next year’s federal budget, and the Senate has yet to take up a single budget bill. The House will continue its efforts to responsibly secure FY25 funding after we return from district work.”
