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News and updates

CR Leads to Vote on Speaker Removal

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So… as the House made a last-minute move to avoid a government shutdown over the weekend, it has led to a vote scheduled for this afternoon that could see the House Speaker removed, in essence, by members of his own party.

Hard-right member Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who has made it clear since January– when it took 15 rounds of voting to elect Kevin McCarthy of California as Speaker– that he has been unhappy with McCarthy, used as his final justification the continuing resolution and the supposed negotiations around it to file a motion to remove the Speaker late yesterday.  The House is scheduled vote on that motion this afternoon.  Gaetz has been the most public and vociferous of a group of hard-core right-wing members of the House Republican conference that has sought concessions from the Speaker since the beginning of this Congress.  Apparently, at least for him, the CR was the last straw.

A House Speaker has never been removed during a session and numerous questions abound about how things might unfold:

  • Will a “motion to table” the vote– or kill the motion– before there is an actual vote on the motion succeed?
  • If there is an actual floor vote, how many Republicans will join Gaetz in voting to remove McCarthy?
  • It’s clear that the vast majority of the Republican conference supports McCarthy.  Will Democrats help McCarthy in anyway to stay in power?
  • Who would replace McCarthy?

These are only a handful of questions that will be answered relatively shortly.

Read more about the situation here, here, and here.

 

Shutdown Averted… For Now?

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Not quite at the literal 11th hour– but close to it– the federal government managed to avoid having to shut itself down last Saturday evening over the lack of funds to continue operating.  The dreaded government shutdown– something that most of Washington had been expecting for the past two weeks– was prevented at the end as a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government funded through November 17 was adopted in both chambers on bipartisan votes and signed into law at the last minute.

There was plenty of drama building up to the last-minute, temporary, funding extension.  After the House Republican leadership finally acknowledged early Saturday that it did not have the votes within its conference to pass a bill with only Republican votes due to the recalcitrance of some of the the hard-right members, the Speaker sought to bring to the floor a CR that was relatively “clean.”  It extended government funding at this year’s current levels through November 17, extended the authority of the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Flood Insurance Program, and included $16 billion in emergency disaster relief.  It did not include, something that would prove to be an issue in the Senate later that day, additional funding for efforts in Ukraine.  The package that was being brought to the floor caught the House Democrats by surprise.

Ultimately, after a review of the package to ensure that there were no “poison pills” for their party in the legislation, all but one House Democrat joined a majority of the House Republicans in approving the measure.  Ninety House Republicans voted against the bill.

When the Senate took up the House-passed the bill shortly afterwards, progress was delayed because of the lack of additional funding for Ukraine.  After assurances from the Senate leadership that efforts would be made on this front, the hold on the legislation from Michael Bennet (D-CO) was released and the chamber adopted it 88 to 9.  It was signed into law by President Biden before the end of the evening.

The extension of government funding through November 17 buys, in theory, additional time for the lawmakers to actually finish additional parts of the annual appropriations process.  None of the 12 annual appropriations bills for FY2024 has been signed into law yet.

All of these activities related to the CR has ultimately led to another set of dramatic activities currently playing out in the House this week, which we discuss in the next post.

 

23 Days Until FY24 Funding Deadline: CR in our Future?

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As Congress returns this week (the Senate reconvened on Tuesday while the House comes back on the 11th) after the August recess, there remains significant work to pass the FY24 appropriations bills. In order to prevent a government shut down on September 30th when funding ends, Congress needs to either pass the 12 appropriations bills or pass a short-term continuing resolution (CR) which keeps spending at its current levels so that Congress can have more time to pass the bills this fall. Leaders in both chambers have signaled agreement that a continuing resolution will be necessary to allow more time, but it is unclear if the CR will include additional policy provisions that could endanger its passage.

Where we’re at right now: The Senate has marked up and passed all 12 of its spending bills out of committee but none have been considered yet on the Senate floor. Senate leadership has signaled that they may bring them to the Senate floor this week. The House has marked up and passed in committee 10 of its spending bills but have not considered any on the House floor yet. The House still needs to markup the Labor-HHS-Education bill and Commerce-Justice-Science bill – both of which are important to UW and the higher education community. The Senate is using topline numbers agreed upon in the debt deal brokered earlier this year, while House Republicans have been using a lower number which means that there will be significant work required to reach any agreement. The debt deal brokered earlier this year includes a 1 percent across-the-board funding cut that would take effect next year if the government is still operating under any kind of short-term CR.

Read more about this here and view our FY24 Appropriations tracker here.

OMB & OSTP Release FY25 Budget Planning Memo

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Late last week the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released their annual budget planning memo FY2025-OMB-OSTP-RD-Budget-Priorities-Memo.pdf (whitehouse.gov).  The memo emphasizes that federal research and development is integral to the just, vibrant, and ambitious future that America seeks and identifies key priority highlights including: AI, Global Security, Climate Research, Improving Health Outcomes, Reducing Barriers and Inequities, and Bolstering Industrial Innovation. The memo states that funding choices will be required given constrained discretionary funding caps, emphasizing that agencies should clearly state how funding relates to these key priorities.

August Recess: Where are we at with appropriations?

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Congress left for its annual August recess without passing any of its 12 fiscal year (FY) 2024 appropriations bills, creating an uncertain outlook for how the process will proceed this fall. While the Senate Appropriations Committee approved all 12 of its bills, the House Appropriations Committee moved only 10 of its 12 measures, withholding full committee markup of the Commerce, Justice, and Science and Labor-Health and Human Services-Education bills. Further complicating the prospects for action on final FY 2024 spending measures is that the House and Senate committees are marking up their bills using different topline discretionary spending numbers —  the Senate using the full amount allowed by the recent debt ceiling agreement and the House voluntarily using a lower topline level. It remains to be seen how the two chambers will reconcile these differences, with a continuing resolution (CR) almost certain to be necessary to keep the government functioning prior to the start of FY 2024 on October 1. Negotiations over final FY 2024 spending bills are likely to extend late into the calendar year, if not into 2024. In the meantime, follow along with the process using our FY24 appropriations tracker, linked here.