GOP faces jam-packed September with funding, reconciliation on agenda

Republicans in both chambers are staring down a September sprint after returning from August recess, with a jam-packed legislative agenda and little time to clear their biggest remaining priorities before the midterm election crunch.

At the top of the House’s list is passing a short-term stopgap spending measure — also known as a continuing resolution (CR) — to avert a potential shutdown and keep the government funded past the Sept. 30 fiscal deadline.

What will likely be more of a headache for the GOP in both chambers is trying to push through a third reconciliation package that President Trump has been clamoring for.

The House passed a budget blueprint last month that outlined $73 billion in defense and intelligence funding, $12 billion for agriculture aid and $10 billion for a fund aimed at incentivizing states to adopt Trump-backed voting restrictions.

But a number of Republicans in the upper chamber railed against the House-passed budget resolution. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the Senate Budget Committee’s chair, released the GOP version of the budget resolution in early August, which the chamber didn’t take up before leaving for its recess.

In addition, the Senate ended up reaching a deal to postpone action on a college sports bill pushed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) after failing to agree on whether to hold votes to proceed to the bill. The Senate, however, did pass a bill to expand sanctions targeting Russia , which the House is expected to take up when the lower chamber returns from its recess.

The annual defense policy bill, the farm bill and a measure to reauthorize the nation’s foreign spy powers are also on the list of unfinished congressional business, though priorities will almost certainly slip until after the midterms.

The lower chamber returns next week, only to leave Washington again the week after, while the upper chamber isn’t slated to return until Sept. 14. That leaves Republicans in the House and Senate with roughly three weeks to work on their top priorities before leaving for another monthlong recess in October.

“There’s no question we have a packed September ahead of us, but that’s nothing new in Congress. There is a lot of important work that needs to get done, and funding the government responsibly will be a major priority when we return to Washington. I’m focused on working with my colleagues, being thoughtful about where we spend taxpayer dollars, and making sure we’re delivering for the people we represent. We have a full agenda ahead, and I’m confident we can make it a productive month,” Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) told The Hill in a statement.

But others are less hopeful that Republicans will achieve much in September.

“I’m not sure much gets done in September in Congress. The Senate left town before passing the reconciliation bill. That was the big thing that needed to be done, make sure that we replenish our munitions, and they abandoned town. I just don’t think much gets done before the election,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) told Fox News last week.

One area lawmakers are optimistic about is passing a CR and preventing a politically dangerous shutdown ahead of the midterms.

The House passed a CR last month that would fund the government at existing levels through Dec. 4. The Senate in early August easily passed its own version of a CR that would fund the government through Dec. 11, sending it to the House.

The Senate version of the CR also includes a provision to temporarily halt a rule from the White House budget office that would give political appointees in the executive branch more authority over dispersing federal grants — a provision that some Republicans in the lower chamber may not favor.

“We’ll have to see how that plays in the House,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said on Fox News earlier month about the Senate CR. “Again, the House has passed one completely clean through Dec. 4”

Still, the overwhelming margin of passage in the upper chamber — 90-6 — and the fact that the House passed its own CR early on has left little doubt that the Senate-passed measure could make it through the lower chamber.

Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) told The Hill that he needs to look at the Senate CR “a little bit more closely to understand the differences. But my understanding is that the bills are not so far apart that we won’t be able to get to an answer.”

Asked about whether he was confident Republicans will get a CR across the finish line, Fine said, “I’m very confident about the CR because the Senate has passed one. So while they’re not the same, the fact that they have interest in doing it, and we have interest in doing it, makes me optimistic we’ll get something over the finish line.”

The budget reconciliation bill, meanwhile, faces a more daunting path.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), Trump and conservatives in the upper chamber struck a deal to postpone action on a budget resolution until after recess. Johnson had noted then that some colleagues wanted more than $73 billion in defense funding.

Fiscal hawk conservatives in the Senate also demanded offsets in any reconciliation package, which the House-passed version does not have.

“There’s certainly concern in terms of the need for our military. When the finest among us are in harm’s way, is it really enough?” Johnson said earlier this month.

“The conclusion of the conference and then we had the discussion with the president, he agrees … just work diligently through August and September to do an actually better budget reconciliation bill,” the Senate’s Budget Committee chair continued.

Conservatives have been eyeing the third reconciliation bill as a vehicle to advance the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, a long-standing conservative priority that would require providing proof of citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections and presenting photo identification when casting a ballot.

“I presume if it doesn’t happen in September, it might get revisited after the November election,” Fine said when asked about the timeline of a third reconciliation bill. “But it’s important to me to get it passed because we need to fund defense, and we need to get the SAVE America Act passed so our voters can see that we’re serious about securing our elections.”

He added, “I do wish we had offsets. However, if we have to pass it without offsets in order to get the SAVE America Act passed, that’s something I would support because the country will collapse because we no longer have faith in our elections before it will collapse under our debt.”

Republicans are also eyeing other priorities, including finalizing the annual defense policy bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Senate Democrats defeated a motion to proceed to the $1.15 trillion annual defense authorization bill last month. They cited the resumption of the military conflict with Iran and Trump’s failure to ask Congress to authorize the war — which started on Feb. 28 — as a big reason behind their opposition to the NDAA.

Republicans in the upper chamber are also hoping to complete work on legislation that would impose harsher sanctions on Russia and the top five buyers of Russian oil, along with extending existing sanctions on Iran. The bill passed overwhelmingly in the Senate this month, and the House will likely take it up after recess.

Also on the table is legislation reauthorizing agricultural and food programs. While the House had passed a farm bill back in April, the Senate Agriculture Committee failed to advance the upper chamber’s version of the bill this month.