U.S. Congressional Update

The United States Congress is back in session this week after its annual two-week Easter/Passover holiday recess, still facing the long “to do” list we mentioned in last month’s newsletter.

As of today, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has remained unfunded for 60 days. Democrats and Republicans have given up trying to reach agreement on reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Republicans are plowing ahead with a plan to fund those two federal agencies without any Democratic support.

The vehicle to accomplish that is reconciliation – the same process that was used last year to pass Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”. It would essentially allow the Republicans to pass legislation in the Senate (that meets certain strict criteria) with a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes normally required to overcome a filibuster.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s current plan is to pass a very narrow reconciliation bill, including only funding for ICE and CPB for the rest of Trump’s term—and resist the temptation to add other Republican priorities to this “must pass” bill—though that is usually easier said than done. House Republicans have agreed to support the bipartisan Senate-passed bill to reopen DHS for the remainder of fiscal year 2026 as soon as the Senate makes tangible progress on reconciliation.

Republicans have also discussed the possibility of taking up a second reconciliation bill later this year (the maximum number allowed under the rules) to pass other high priority initiatives that lack Democratic support, including supplemental funding for the war in Iran, more tax cuts, and elements of the SAVE Act. However, it seems fairly clear that this latter item, which would disenfranchise millions of Americans, is not germane to reconciliation.

As Republicans seek to close out the fiscal year 2026 appropriations process by approving funding for DHS, they are also starting work on fiscal year 2027 appropriations, with the House Appropriations Committee scheduled to consider the first of the 12 individual appropriations bills this week. Having said that, there is widespread recognition that Congress is extremely unlikely to pass any of these bills until after the midterm elections this November, which could well result in a change of party control in one or both houses.

In the coming weeks, Congress will also have to contend with the war in Iran. Democrats will continue to offer resolutions to force the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iran.  Republicans will almost surely oppose those efforts, but the party is growing increasingly concerned about the impact of the conflict—including skyrocketing gas prices—on their electoral fortunes. A handful of Republicans have started discussing the possibility of offering legislation to authorize the use of force in Iran beyond the initial 60-day period of the conflict—as required by the War Powers Act—but it seems unlikely that most members of the party will want to “own” the war by voting for it.

Given the difficulty of getting anything done in an election year, and the tiny margin the Republicans have to work with in the House, it’s my hunch that we’ll be talking about many of the same issues in next month’s newsletter.