In our world. Congress is staring down an absolutely brutal week that will set the tone for the rest of the legislative year. There are 190 days until Election Day.
King Charles III will address a joint meeting of Congress on Tuesday (his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, did so in 1991). FISA Section 702 expires Thursday. The House will try to pass a farm bill and a GOP-drafted budget resolution to allow funding for the Department of Homeland Security, including ICE and Border Patrol. The DHS shutdown has now reached a disastrous 72 days.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has informed lawmakers that the Trump administration won’t be able to keep paying DHS employees past April 30. That means Congress has to move this week.
FISA. We’re hearing increasing confidence from Speaker Mike Johnson and House GOP leaders that they’ll be able to jam through a revised FISA Section 702 package after two previous failures. House Democrats acknowledge this privately as well. But as with everything in the House, we assume nothing is final until it’s final.
The House Rules Committee will meet at 1 p.m. to begin prepping the FISA bill, the Senate-passed budget DHS resolution, the farm bill and another measure that mandates schools must get parents’ permission before changing a student’s gender information.
We’ll be watching several dynamics inside the Rules Committee. First and foremost, can House Rules Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) report a rule out of the panel? The FISA bill has a few modest tweaks from the last disastrous House GOP attempt to pass it — enhanced criminal penalties for abuses of the system and other safeguards — but it remains a far cry from what hardline Republicans were demanding. Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas), Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) — all members of the panel — could call this rewrite a win, or they can continue to fight.
Second, the House Republican leadership tells us they’re going to reauthorize FISA this week, no matter what. That signals that GOP leaders need a lot of flexibility. Will the Rules Committee attempt to waive the House’s onerous restrictions on suspension votes in order to pass the FISA measure? The House isn’t allowed to bring these measures up on Thursdays or Fridays. This would be wise, but it’s not clear if Johnson has the capital to make this move now.
Johnson will likely need House Democrats one way or another here. There’s not enough Democratic support for passing FISA under suspension, so Johnson may turn to pro-FISA Democrats to pass a rule. Republicans could need to make concessions to get those Democratic votes. The FISA bill is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday on the floor.
If the House can pass a FISA extension, it’ll head over to the Senate as a message, reducing the number of procedural hurdles for Senate Majority Leader John Thune. But Thune will still need to secure a time agreement to pass it by Thursday’s deadline. This likely means Thune may have to allow amendment votes in exchange for a unanimous-consent agreement. Defeating some of the amendments from the pro-reform faction could prove difficult.
Budget resolution and DHS. DHS is again in the spotlight following Saturday’s attempted presidential shooting. Secret Service and TSA — both of which were protecting the dinner — are part of DHS, which has been shut down since Feb. 14.
Nearly a month ago, Johnson and Thune issued a statement saying DHS would be funded “in the coming days.” Senate Republican leaders believe Johnson reneged on that agreement to help himself inside the House GOP conference. House Republicans counter that Thune was unwise to fund DHS without ICE and CBP.
Wrapped up in all of this is Johnson’s promise to pass the Senate’s budget resolution before funding DHS. That vote is currently envisioned for Wednesday. The challenge here is that many House Republicans want the budget resolution — the framework for Reconciliation 2.0 — expanded beyond just ICE and CBP. Johnson has no interest in that.
To that end, Johnson will release this week a number of policies he’ll try to notch in Reconciliation 3.0. There’s a risk to this approach because Reconciliation 3.0 is far from a sure thing, and it could cost Johnson votes from moderates and conservatives alike.
