Good evening,
Following last week’s successful passage of another continuing resolution (CR)-the fourth short-term funding patch this fiscal year-House and Senate appropriators today released text of a six-bill minibus that covers half of the twelve total appropriation accounts and comprises roughly 30% of total annual discretionary spending.
The six accounts included in this first minibus are Agriculture (Ag); Military Construction & Veterans’ Affairs (MilCon/VA); Energy & Water; Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD); Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS); and Interior.
Following a 72-hour review period, the House is scheduled to consider the minibus this coming Wednesday afternoon under “suspension of the rules,” a fast-track process that allows for an up-or-down vote without any amendments and requires 2/3rds support to pass.
After House passage of the bill, Senate Majority Leader Schumer will likely file cloture on the motion to concur on Wednesday evening. Under regular order, the first Senate vote would occur on Friday with final passage occurring Saturday. In order to speed up this timeline and avoid a technical shutdown, we expect Senate leaders to work throughout the week to obtain a unanimous consent agreement that could include amendment votes sought by conservative senators-amendments that would ultimately fail.
As of this writing, party leaders projected optimism in their ability to secure the necessary bipartisan support to pass the bill through both the House and Senate ahead of the new March 8 deadline-which would also allow the State of the Union to proceed as scheduled on Thursday, March 7.
Hardline conservatives in both chambers can be expected to make noise over the coming days about specific line-items in the bill that they object to-such as earmarks and accounts they otherwise believe should be defunded-but their ability to stymie passage is limited so long as Speaker Mike Johnson stays the course and calls up the bill under suspension.
The more challenging test will come in the leadup to the new March 22 deadline for the second tranche of appropriations bills. The latter six bills make up roughly 70% of annual discretionary spending and include the traditionally more contentious accounts of Defense; Financial Services and General Government (FSGG); Homeland Security; Labor, Health and Human Services (Labor-HHS); Legislative Branch; and State and Foreign Operations (SFOPS).
After publicly declaring a loss on the first minibus, we expect hardline conservatives to renew their pressure on Speaker Johnson to pick a shutdown fight with Democrats over the issues of spending and border security. Strategy for handling the second funding deadline will likely be a major point of discussion at the annual House Republican Member Retreat taking place from March 13-15 at the Greenbrier.
Not on the House schedule for now or for the foreseeable future is aid for Ukraine. Speaker Johnson has stated that his primary goal is to clear the appropriation bills before turning to the issue of foreign aid, which pushes the matter out for at least another three weeks. While a small group of bipartisan members led by Representative Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) is filing a longshot discharge petition on their compromise legislation and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) has taken the lead in drafting his own House-version of a supplemental aid package, we continue to see major hurdles towards any such package being put to a vote and passing the House in the near-term.