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Category: Pure Politics

Five Hour Vote

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After five hours of an open vote, the House was able to pass the Senate budget resolution (S. Con. Res. 33) in an effort end the stalemate on DHS funding and if and how much for fund ICE. This resolution instructs Congress to provide $70 million for immigration enforcement funding.

The House voted to adopt the resolution 215-211, strictly along party lines with one member voting present.

While the budget vote marked an important step, it will not, on its own end, the 75-day partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. The House still must take up a Senate-passed appropriations bill (HR 7147) to fund the rest of the DHS, outside of immigration agencies. The concurrent resolution is a significant step for Congress to begin funding the agency.

At present, the Coast Guard, TSA and other DHS units are being funded through extraordinary measures. Funding available to do so will be fully depleted in the next month.

The House planned on having a busy week and was scheduled to consider the FISA reauthorization and the Farm Bill. However, after multiple caucus issues, the Farm Bill was removed from the House Floor and returned to the House Rules Committee.

 

Congress Home for the Holidays

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After a busy week, Senators huddled on the floor Thursday night as they made an eleventh-hour attempt to find a path forward on bringing up a bundle of five bills or minibus for consideration before the end of 2025. No agreement to move forward was reached after Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, both of Colorado, announced they would hold up the package after White House OMB director Russ Vought’s decision to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which is based in Colorado.

 

The package under consideration in the Senate would fund the Departments of Defense, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce (including NOAA), Health and Human Services (including NIH), Transportation, Labor and Interior, along with the EPA and NSF.

A few Republican Senators have held the bill from moving forward but released a hold after Senate leadership agreed to an amendment vote on stripping earmarks in the legislation. The Colorado hold is new to the OMB decision.

The Senate will resume consideration and negotiations in January.

 

 

Administration Seeks to Dismantle ED by Moving Programs to Different Agencies

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While publicly acknowledging earlier this year that Congressional approval would be needed to officially terminate the Education Department, the Administration announced today a series of Interagency Agreements (IAA) to move vast portions of its portfolio to other agencies in an effort to dismantle it from the inside.  The announcement from ED is available here.

Specifically, ED is proposing to move six sets of programs to four other federal agencies:

  • Programs  currently under jurisdiction of Office of Higher Education (NOT Title IV student financial aid programs) and the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education would be transferred to the Department of Labor– the factsheets for these agreements are here and here.
  • Most of tribal and Native American education programs would be moved to the Department of Interior– the factsheet is available here.
  • International Education and Foreign Language Studies would be shipped to State Department– the factsheet on that transfer is available here. 
  • Two sets of programs would be moved to the Department of Health and Human Services:  Foreign Medical Accreditation and Child Care Access Means Parents in School– the factsheets for these proposed moves are here and here.

Additional reports about the proposed moves are available here, here, and here.

Although these moves have been proposed by the Administration, they are unlikely to be the last word on this front.  We should expect legal and other challenges to today’s annoucements.

Shutdown Officially Ends

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After 43 days, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history has officially ended. President Donald Trump signed a funding bill late Wednesday night, just hours after the House passed it 222–209. The bill restores government operations through January and provides full-year funding for select agencies, including SNAP, which had been disrupted during the shutdown.

Despite Republicans’ narrow House majority, six Democrats crossed party lines to support the measure: Henry Cuellar of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Adam Gray of California, Jared Golden of Maine, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, and Tom Suozzi of New York. Two Republicans—Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Greg Steube of Florida—voted against it.

The bill includes backpay for federal workers and reverses layoffs imposed during the shutdown. However, it does not address Democrats’ key demand: extending enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at year’s end. Instead, Senate Majority Leader John Thune pledged to hold a vote on that issue in December—a promise many Democrats view with skepticism.

The shutdown, triggered by a standoff over healthcare subsidies, left millions without food aid, grounded flights, and forced federal employees to work without pay. In the end, Democrats did not gain any policy concessions, and the government reopened under deal that may or may not deliver on healthcare reform. With funding set to lapse again in January, Congress faces another deadline for full-year funding bills.