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March 10, 2025
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THE TOP
Four days until a shutdown: Can Johnson top Jeffries in CR squabble?
Happy Monday morning.
Congress is walking right up to the line of another political crisis once again.
It’s deadline week. The House and Senate both need to pass a funding bill by midnight Friday or else the federal government shuts down. Here’s the main event: The 99-page CR that House Republicans released on Saturday.
House GOP leaders plan to go to the Rules Committee today to set the guidelines for considering this bill on the floor. They tentatively plan for a floor vote on Tuesday. The House is scheduled to leave town following that vote. House Democrats are set to hold their annual retreat during the latter part of the week in Leesburg, Va.
This CR would fund federal agencies through Sept. 30. House Republicans say it’s a “clean” resolution that keeps spending at the current level. Democrats have a very different view of what the package would do. More on that below.
We’ll say this upfront: It doesn’t feel like a shutdown is going to happen, although there’s still a chance because, well, this is Congress. Every time we think we’ve reached new levels of silliness, lawmakers up the ante.
Remember: This is a 204-day CR. We’re talking about a package that locks in most of the Biden-era spending levels that the federal government has been operating under during the last year.
President Donald Trump has demanded all Republicans vote to pass the CR – “NO DISSENT,” he tweeted – so that the GOP has time to push through his legislative agenda over the next few months. Trump is aware that a shutdown isn’t what he needs less than two months into his second term.
Of course, setting a government funding deadline in mid-March was an ill-advised decision. But Speaker Mike Johnson wanted to remain speaker during the 119th Congress, so he moved the deadline from December to now.
House and Senate appropriators sought for months to find a bipartisan compromise on the FY 2025 spending bills.
Yet with Trump and mega-billionaire Elon Musk laying off tens of thousands of federal workers and attempting to unilaterally eliminate departments and agencies, Democratic leaders insisted on language that would limit how Trump can spend money. Democrats also want Congress to pass individual spending bills.
Neither of these are operative at this moment. There’s no way that Republicans would agree to any provision restricting Trump. And it’s far too late to pass an omnibus. Furthermore, Johnson would get hammered for doing so by his conservative colleagues. So this CR is probably the only way to avert a shutdown.
The key to what happens this week is whether Johnson can pass a rule and the CR itself with only House Republican votes. As we’ve noted repeatedly over the last few days, we expect only a handful of House Democrats – at the most – to vote for this resolution. Meaning Johnson and House GOP leaders must get to 217 votes on their own. GOP leadership feels like they have a pathway to that goal. Johnson and his top lieutenants feel like they can dare Democrats to vote against the measure.
But if Johnson can’t limit his defections to near zero, then the speaker will have to find a way to cut a deal with Democrats. Given all the bad blood between the two parties at the moment, that deal would be hard to reach.
House Democratic leaders also feel pretty good right now about holding their no votes in line. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ statement over the weekend declared, “We are voting No.”
Here’s the Dem whip notice from Saturday night urging a no vote.
We used Enbloc AI — Punchbowl News’ proprietary data platform — to come up with a list of House Democrats who frequently vote with Republicans on government spending bills. There are a number of them.
Jet fumes? If the CR passes the House, Senate Democrats would be in a tough spot, as we noted last week. Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the top Democratic appropriator, says the House’s CR only enables Trump and Musk to keep slashing federal payrolls at will. But several Democratic senators have suggested they’d vote for the CR if a shutdown became the only alternative. At least seven Democratic votes are necessary for Senate passage. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is expected to be a no, further complicating matters.
While there’s no doubt they’ll put up a fight like progressives want, we don’t expect Senate Democrats to shut down the government. This would completely undermine their messaging efforts on Musk and DOGE.
The CR, assuming the House passes it, would also be the only thing standing between senators and their first recess week of 2025.
Democrats’ issues with the bill. Democrats have legitimate policy concerns with this CR. Those concerns were enumerated in a seven-page memo that Murray released on Saturday night.
Democrats complain the proposed legislation gives too much flexibility for the Trump administration on a whole host of fronts including clean energy grants, money for combatting the fentanyl crisis and CDC programs. According to Democrats, the proposal also shortchanges agencies ranging from the Army Corps of Engineers to the VA to election security.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, called the CR proposal a “power grab” by Trump and Musk.
— Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Andrew Desiderio
Reminder: Join us on Thursday at 8:30 a.m. ET for a conversation with Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) on the news of the day and the continued development of space policy. RSVP to attend in-person or on the livestream!
POWER. PEOPLE. POLITICS.
It’s here: The 2025 Punchbowl News Power List
Power. People. Politics. It’s been the Punchbowl News mantra – the rubric guiding our coverage – since we launched in 2021.
This week, we’ll gather the most powerful people in Washington and in corporate America for The Conference, our invite-only summit in D.C.
And we’d also like to introduce The Power List, a guide to the most important people in President Donald Trump’s Washington.
The Power List includes people on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue. They have the ears of the president, Cabinet secretaries, congressional leaders and everyone else who shapes U.S. politics and policy.
Bookmark this list to help you as the GOP trifecta tries to navigate an ambitious agenda and reshape Washington – and the United States.
— Robert O’Shaughnessy
LEADERSHIP’S HEADACHE
Will the House GOP strip Al Green of his committee seat?
House Republican leaders feel like they had a good week last week. President Donald Trump gave an address to Congress that the GOP loved (and Democrats hated). The Republican leadership released a proposed CR that they hope to rally the entire party around – with Trump’s blessing. And on Thursday, the House voted to censure Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), who interrupted Trump’s speech, with Democratic support.
Enter the House Freedom Caucus.
The hardline conservative flank of the House Republican Conference is looking to take things a step further by stripping Green of his only committee assignment, a seat on the Financial Services Committee. The HFC is upset that Green and other Democrats sang “We Shall Overcome” while standing in the well of the House during the reading of the censure resolution against him. Green also said he’d make the same protest against Trump’s speech again.
Here’s a draft of the resolution, which is being offered by Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.).
There are a few things to keep in mind here.
1) There’s some thought that this resolution should be privileged. When a resolution is brought up under the privileges of the House, the majority can only delay the vote for two days, but it must schedule a vote. HFC sources tell us they don’t believe that the resolution will reach that threshold, but they’ve been in talks with the House parliamentarian on this over the last few days.
If the resolution isn’t privileged, then the House GOP leadership needs to decide what to do with it.
2) There’s an overwhelming sentiment in Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership that this measure should go away. Top House Republicans feel like they won last week and they don’t need to kick Green off his committee after censuring him.
Plus, there is a chance that some Republicans would vote against this resolution or skip the vote, allowing Democrats to defeat it.
3) If the Crane resolution does come up, you can expect zero Democrats to vote for it, unlike the censure resolution.
In fact, House Democratic leaders are really angry that Republicans are even considering kicking Green off Financial Services. Green’s actions during Trump’s speech had nothing to do with his committee assignment. They’ll go to war to kill this resolution, which they see as a real threat to the future of the institution.
4) Stripping members from their committee assignments for political reasons – we’re talking non-ethics or criminal scandals – is a pretty recent development. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was the first to lose her committee seats in early 2021. That was followed by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) being censured and stripped of his committee seats in Nov. 2021. Last Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was removed from the Foreign Affairs Committee. And then Speaker Kevin McCarthy removed then-Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) from the Intelligence Committee in Jan. 2023.
– Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan
PRESENTED BY INSTAGRAM
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What we’re watching
Monday: The House Rules Committee will meet at 4 p.m. to prepare three bills for floor action: the long-term CR, the Pandemic Unemployment Fraud Enforcement Act and a CRA on digital assets.
Tuesday: The House Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing at 10 a.m. on stablecoins and the “consequences of a U.S. central bank digital currency.”
The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing at 10 a.m. on antitrust law and the NCAA.
The House Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing at 10 a.m. on the state of U.S. shipbuilding with officials from the Navy, the Congressional Budget Office, the Government Accountability Office and Congressional Research Service.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing at 2 p.m. on reauthorizing the U.S. Development Finance Corporation.
Wednesday: The Senate Budget Committee will hold a vote on former Rep. Dan Bishop’s (R-N.C.) nomination to be deputy director of OMB.
The Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing at 9:30 a.m. on the current readiness of the joint force. Officials from the Army, Navy and Air Force will testify.
Thursday: The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing at 9:15 a.m. to confirm two Justice Department nominees – Harmeet Dhillon and Aaron Reitz – and the nominee to be solicitor general, Dean Sauer.
The Senate HELP Committee will hold a hearing to vote on the nominations of Jay Bhattacharya to be director of NIH and Martin Makary to be commissioner of the FDA. The committee will also hold a confirmation hearing for former Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.) to be director of the CDC.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing at 10:30 a.m. on the nominations of former Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) to be ambassador to Canada and George Glass to be ambassador to Japan.
– Jake Sherman
… AND THERE’S MORE
Downtown Download. Miller Strategies, one of the top Republican lobbying shops in town, has made three new hires.
James Min, a former top aide to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, is joining the firm as chief operating officer. Min was deputy chief of staff to all of McCarthy’s leadership offices, overseeing personnel, operations and McCarthy’s own political operations. Min was most recently Rep. Vince Fong’s (R-Calif.) chief of staff. The Stanford University and Georgetown Law graduate has worked on Capitol Hill since 1999.
Stefan Passantino will be a principal. Passantino worked in President Donald Trump’s White House counsel office and on the president’s transition team.
Luke Wallwork is joining as associate principal. Wallwork was director of member services and coalitions for the House Small Business Committee. Wallwork served as a personal aide to former Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
The Campaign. Rolling Sea Action Fund, the Congressional Black Caucus PAC-aligned group, is airing an ad attacking Trump on economic issues.
The spot is running in Michigan’s 8th District, Ohio’s 13th District and North Carolina’s 1st District, which are all swing seats with substantial percentages of Black voters.
https://youtu.be/aCVWQ6WE5hQ?si=gXuWV_hiDjUXcwy7
– Jake Sherman and Max Cohen
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