Congress returns Monday to grapple with midterm election fallout and decide what, if any, legislation on a long to-do list can pass in the final weeks of the Republican majorities.
The lame-duck session, as the post-election period is called, will test the two parties’ takeaways from Democrats’ rout.
Defeated and bruised Republicans will have to decide whether to attempt a third party-line budget reconciliation bill to pass their remaining priorities before Democrats take control of Congress in January.
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Democrats will weigh whether to immediately leverage their electoral momentum to cut off funding for the Iran war, as lawmakers consider the annual defense reauthorization bill and government funding.
But before those decisions come into focus, the Senate is going to attempt to pass bipartisan legislation overhauling the federal permitting process for energy, infrastructure and other development projects.
The first procedural test vote on the permitting bill, known as BAAJA, is scheduled for Monday evening. It needs 60 votes to advance.
Senate Democrats who helped write the bill before the midterm elections are trying to convince their colleagues that it is a good deal, despite internal party concerns about changes to historic preservation and environmental reviews.
“Americans spoke clearly this week that they want their elected representatives focused on affordability,” New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said on social media. “We have legislation that would reduce household electricity bills by billions of dollars by making it easier to build clean energy projects. Let’s get it done and pass BAAJA.”
Most of Mr. Heinrich’s Democratic colleagues in the Senate have not publicly weighed in on the bill, but there has been pushback from House members.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries wants more input from his caucus and changes to the bill before it advances.
“House Democrats support, and will deliver, responsible permitting reform. But as Speaker-elect Jeffries said today, and as some of us have said for weeks, we must have a chance to fix the most glaring flaws in BAAJA,” California Rep. Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said on social media.
Hegseth impeachment
The House has a light legislative schedule its first week back, but it will confront another debate over the Iran war, as Rep. Thomas Massie forces a vote on impeaching Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Mr. Massie, Kentucky Republican, teed up the vote in September, but GOP leaders sent the House home earlier to avoid having to take up the impeachment resolution before the midterms.
The congressman said last week that the only way he does not move forward with the vote is if Mr. Hegseth resigns. He suggested that President Trump would be wise to replace the defense secretary now, while he still has time to get a replacement confirmed by a Republican-run Senate.
“My Hegseth impeachment resolution is a much gentler version of what’s coming when Dem’s control Congress. They’ll have hearings & trials,” Mr. Massie said on social media.
Democrats will have to decide whether to side with Mr. Massie’s move to impeach Mr. Hegseth now, or wait to launch their own investigation that could build a stronger case for why it is warranted.
Mr. Hegseth put out a video dismissing Mr. Massie, who lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, as “a disgruntled, defeated congressman” and his articles of impeachment as a “sham.”
He indicated he has no plans to resign, saying, “We have only just begun to fight. We are more determined than ever, more resolute than ever to finish what we have started.”
House GOP leaders are expected to move to kill the impeachment resolution, but it is not a foregone conclusion that all Republicans would vote to quash it after voters handed them an electoral beating in part over the unpopular Iran war.
“I can tell you with a high level of confidence that there are a lot of questions about Hegseth,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, Kentucky Republican, said on NewsNation.
“We have no idea what the strategy is moving forward in Iran,” Mr. Comer said. “No one’s happy about Iran. And I think the Republican voters are more upset about what’s going on in Iran than the Democrat voters. … We’ve got to regain their trust.”
Funding fight
The big focal point of the lame-duck session will be the Dec. 11 government funding deadline.
Lawmakers agreed this summer to punt the funding fight until after the election, and have made no visible progress on negotiating bipartisan appropriations bills since then.
It’s unlikely that lawmakers will strike a deal on a full-year spending package in the lame-duck session, meaning another stopgap measure would be needed.
Some Democrats see that as an opportunity to defund the Iran war.
Rep. Ro Khanna, California Democrat, said any stopgap funding bill should include a provision “prohibiting the financing of any combat activities of the U.S. military in Iran.”
Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer of New York appears willing to use the spending process as a means to end the Iran war.
“The founding fathers had the power of the purse as one of the ways of deterring a president who does war without the consent of the American people,” Mr. Schumer said at a post-election press conference.
The question Democrats will have to grapple with is when is the best time to wage that fight.
If Republicans do not agree to defund the Iran war and Democrats force a government shutdown during the lame-duck session, they would have to deal with that when they take control of Congress in January. That could serve as a distraction from the affordability agenda they campaigned on as their number one priority.
Senate Democrats already blocked the annual defense authorization bill this summer over the Iran war, and they could continue to use that as leverage too since Republicans want to pass it before the end of the year.
Final GOP swing?
Republicans and Democrats have cooperated very little this Congress, with a few notable exceptions, such as a bipartisan housing bill.
The bulk of the legislative items Republicans got signed into law, however, came in two party-line bills passed through the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation.
That includes three years of funding for immigration enforcement agencies, sweeping tax cuts and structural changes to government health care and food assistance programs.
Republicans have been talking about a third reconciliation bill for months, but they could not muster enough support in the Senate for the effort before the election.
The pre-election plan was to use the reconciliation process to replenish defense funding spent on the Iran war, provide aid to farmers and set up a grant program to encourage states to adopt proof of citizenship and voter ID requirements for elections.
Republicans may now try to build a bigger package so they can pass as many of their priorities as possible before handing control over to Democrats.
That would require party unity. Some Republicans, particularly those who lost their races, may not be willing to pass another party-line bill after voters signaled they want something new.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican, said he is prepared to lead another reconciliation bill but is not sure there is backing in the party to get it done.
“During the recess, as much as I harangued them, I’ve gotten virtually no engagement by either Senate or House leadership or the White House,” Mr. Johnson said on “The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show.” “This takes a lot of time and effort. We need to know what the product is going to be.”
At least two administration officials have made public requests: Mr. Hegseth wants at least $350 billion in defense funding, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is asking for $30 billion for the ongoing effort to overhaul the nation’s air traffic control system.
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