Congress returns to fight the same battles it faced before the Thanksgiving break: funding the government and providing funding for Ukraine and Israel, while dealing with immigration at the southern border.
Before leaving for the Thanksgiving break, Congress approved the two-tier Continuing Resolution with January 19 the deadline for less controversial budgets, and February 2nd the deadline for the big departments such as Defense and HHS.
Prior to the break, the House tried and failed to pass their versions of several less controversial packages such as Transportation and Agriculture, but a split in the Republican ranks led to leadership pulling the bills. Conservatives wanted to slash spending on programs such as Amtrak and nutrition for the poor, plus limits on abortion medication. With only four votes to spare on any bill that passes the House on a party-line vote, there were enough moderate Republicans opposing the deep cuts and abortion language for the vote count to show that there wasn’t enough Republican support to pass the bills.
Newly minted Speaker Mike Johnson will have to use the credibility he has with the most conservative Republicans to strike deals with his moderate members, Democrats, and the White House – if the House Republicans are going to avoid blame for a government shutdown early next year.
Supplemental funding
There is strong bipartisan support for the White House request to provide funding for the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, but in order to get the sixty votes needed to overcome a filibuster in the Senate, some deal on the growing immigration crisis at the southern border will need to be reached. As illegal immigrants flood into many of the nation’s largest cities, a bipartisan consensus appears to be growing that an immigration component should be appended to the Israel/Ukraine aid package.
A bipartisan group of Senators is looking for a compromise that will amplify financial resources for protecting the border, add immigration judges to quickly adjudicate detained illegal immigrants and take action to remove illegals placed in urban areas across the nation. Senate Republicans have made clear that they need the immigration package to provide the votes required to pass the military aid.
There is widespread desire to get the deal passed before the Christmas/New Year’s break.
Preview of 2024 House races
House Republicans hold on to a narrow 4-seat majority in the House, and that is likely to decline to three seats with the expected expulsion of Rep. George Santos in the coming weeks.
The core challenge for Republicans is that they have eighteen members in seats won by President Biden, while Democrats only have five members in seats carried by former President Trump. The Republicans could also be hampered if Democrats are successful in getting abortion amendments on the ballot in some of the battleground states. The passage earlier this month in Ohio of a pro-choice amendment to the state constitution with a 56% majority demonstrates the political risk the abortion issue creates for Republicans.
2024 has the added uncertainty that a presidential race brings to elections for the House and Senate. If one of the national candidates either incentivizes the party’s electorate or results in them staying at home, it can have a profound impact on the under-ticket.
House Republicans have had to deal with the internal fight over the Speaker, getting budgets passed, and a growing divide between the hard-right conservatives and the more centrist members of the party.
In addition to these issues, there are several Republican seats that have been redrawn by the courts to make some districts more racially balanced. The general assumption is that these could add between two and six seats to the Democratic numbers. Both parties are seeing many members choosing not to run for re-election, and races with no incumbents tend to add to the political uncertainty of a House race.
With a year or so before Election Day 2024, the race for control of the House looks to be quite close.
