Senate Republicans — who hammered Democrats for failing to pass their version of the annual defense authorization bill last year — may be on track to repeat history.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune projected optimism Monday that senators could still get their version of the annual defense policy bill over the finish line and kickstart formal talks with the House.
But GOP aides have privately acknowledged the path forward remains uncertain.
“I’d like to get it done here in the next few days if possible,” Thune told us Monday. “We’re trying to get the second manager’s package hotlined on both sides and then an agreement on the number of amendments that we would vote on on the floor. So it’s in the works.”
The prospect of securing floor time or voting agreements is far from assured. Republicans are prioritizing the first batch of sub-Cabinet nominees they’re set to confirm under the chamber’s new rules this week. They still need to burn a few more days of floor time, with a confirmation vote on the nominees slated for Thursday. After that, government funding — with a potential shutdown looming — is the priority.
And the closer we get to December, taking up floor time on the Senate’s version of the NDAA gets less enticing, given that senators will need to pass the compromise version by year-end anyway.
Yet senators are always eager to put their mark on the NDAA through a formal floor process.
“I’d like to see us get to the floor and have some amendments. The old-fashioned way,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said in an interview.
Looking back. Leading Republicans loudly bashed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer last September for not putting the Senate’s version of the NDAA on the floor.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in a floor speech at the time that Schumer was “playing with fire.” Asked about potentially replicating that situation this year, Cornyn said Monday it’s “premature to know what’s going to happen with the NDAA right now.”
GOP aides have argued the circumstances surrounding the current delay are different, noting that Democrats have forced Thune to burn valuable floor time all year to confirm non-controversial nominees.
But Democrats say passage of the NDAA is more important right now. “We’re voting at 8 o’clock tonight on the Fed board of governors,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told us. “Why wouldn’t we vote on the defense bill?”
Republicans also say that Schumer’s move last week to force a vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files — which he triggered as part of the ongoing NDAA floor process — was an affront to the bipartisanship normally seen during this annual defense policy debate.
Senate GOP leaders insist they can still process their chamber’s version of the bill, even if it slips to October. That’s because floor time will open up dramatically once Republicans clear the full backlog of nominations Democrats have blocked.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the top Armed Services Democrat, isn’t ruling out the potential for filing cloture on the underlying bill and passing it, without debate on amendments.
“I’m still of the mind that we could get the bill done,” Reed said.
