It seems like Speaker Mike Johnson is the only congressional leader who wants to put a government funding deadline in the first quarter of Donald Trump’s presidency. Yet that doesn’t mean Washington won’t ultimately go along with punting the spending fight into 2025.
Senate Republicans aren’t thrilled with Johnson’s stated preference for a CR. Incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune delicately noted that “there are different points of view.” Thune didn’t directly criticize the idea of a stopgap funding bill but said the Senate may have no other choice.
“If that’s what they think they have the capacity to move, we’ll have to adapt to that,” Thune told us. “We’ll see eventually what the traffic will bear, but that seems to be what the speaker is coming down on.”
As of last week, top House and Senate appropriators were making the case for clearing the decks on FY2025 funding, which would guarantee that Trump wouldn’t have to deal with a spending fight at the outset of his administration. Trump could instead focus on his “100-day agenda.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the incoming Appropriations Committee chair, said it’s “very much in the interest of the new administration” for this to be resolved before January.
Johnson’s view is that kicking funding into early next year will give Trump a chance to put his stamp on any spending deal. Perhaps more importantly, Johnson avoids the optics of having to cut a deal with President Joe Biden and Democrats on a massive end-of-year spending package right ahead of a speakership floor vote. Johnson World believes that a year-long spending package running through Sept. 30 won’t sell in the House GOP.
So at least from Johnson’s perspective, this is a smart political play. Of course, if Trump were to ask Congress for an omnibus, Johnson would have plenty of cover to maneuver. So far, Trump hasn’t publicly weighed in on his preference.
Unsurprisingly, defense hawks don’t like the move. The Pentagon loathes CRs, with top Defense Department officials arguing that it interferes with their ability to run projects and programs effectively. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who will chair the Armed Services Committee next year, said this about a CR: “We need to stop that at all costs.”
There’s also the White House’s emergency disaster relief funding request, which totals nearly $100 billion. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), whose state was ravaged by deadly Hurricanes Milton and Helene, said he wants it to be attached to a “largely clean” CR.
“It’s only the beginning,” Tillis said of the federal aid request for the Tarheel State. “This is the best they could do based on the stated needs.”
The hardline House Freedom Caucus, which is usually reflexively opposed to any CR, could potentially come around to supporting a stopgap bill. Some HFC members have been advocating for a March CR in anticipation of another Trump administration. The group has yet to take a formal position, and — like many Republicans in Washington — seems to be waiting to take its cues from Trump.
Earmarks out: Passage of a CR means no earmarks. That’s especially bad news for appropriators, senior lawmakers in the House and Senate, and members in swing districts or states who will lose out millions of dollars — sometimes tens or hundreds of millions of dollars — worth of earmarks.
In the House bills alone, there are thousands of “community funded projects” that won’t get into a CR. For instance, the earmarks for the Transportation-HUD bill alone run 193 pages. You can see the other House Appropriations Committee-approved earmarks here. The Senate has its own earmarks that won’t get included in any CR.
If Trump is serious about huge spending cuts in discretionary funding, whose earmarks survive and how will lawmakers who get shut out react?
GOP plays hardball on judges: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is usually able to take the mundane procedural steps of setting up votes on judicial nominees with little problem. But on Monday night, when Republicans learned that Schumer would be filing cloture on several nominees, they tried to make it painful.
Instead of allowing Schumer to schedule nomination votes via unanimous consent, Republicans objected and forced roll-call votes on each maneuver. So a process that usually takes a few minutes ended up lasting more than five hours, with senators casting votes until around midnight.
Schumer is under pressure from progressives to confirm as many judicial nominees as possible before Democrats lose their Senate majority. At the same time, Republicans are trying to make it as difficult as possible for Schumer to close the year out on a high note.
As of last night, the Democratic-controlled Senate has confirmed 216 of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees. Trump had 234 with a GOP-run Senate in his first term. Democrats think they can surpass that number during the lame duck.
Also: Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) attended the House Freedom Caucus meeting on Monday. Gaetz was thanking members for their support on his embattled nomination for attorney general. House conservatives are among the few Republicans in either chamber that have supported him for the role.
One more thing: Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, said she has read the full Gaetz report and believes it should be released to the Senate and the public.
