U.S. Congressional Update

As we head into the latter part of March, with the midterm elections lurking on the horizon, Congress has a long “to do” list—and not a lot of time to get it done.

First, as of today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) remains unfunded for the current fiscal year. As we noted in our previous newsletter, this shutdown doesn’t impact the agencies at the heart of the funding dispute—Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—because they received advance funding last year in Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB). But it does impact other units of DHS, including one that has a significant impact on the public—the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

TSA workers have now missed a paycheck, and some are not showing up for work on a regular basis, while others have simply quit. As a result, security lines at some airports have been extremely long. Predictably, the two parties are blaming each other for the impasse. Democrats argue that the White House and Congressional Republicans have not negotiated in good faith on reforms to ICE and CPB that are supported by a solid majority of the public. They also point out that Republicans have repeatedly voted against legislation that would provide funding for TSA and some other DHS agencies. Republicans say that Democrats should support another short-term funding patch while negotiations continue.

Right now, there appears to be no end in sight to this stalemate.

Congress will also need to grapple with funding for the war in Iran. Democrats almost uniformly oppose this unauthorized war of choice and are unlikely to provide the votes necessary to overcome a filibuster in the Senate for any supplemental appropriations request—which could run as high as $100 billion. As a result, Republicans are eyeing the possibility of wrapping this funding into a second reconciliation bill (the first being the OBBB), which requires only a simple majority vote in both the House and Senate.

Congressional Republicans had already been eyeing reconciliation as a vehicle to enact additional tax and spending items on their agenda and, from their perspective, war funding would seem to be a good fit. The reconciliation process requires offsetting cuts for any spending increases, so Republicans would have to find new places to trim—which is not always an easy task, especially in an election year.

Finally, the Senate is currently focused on the SAVE America Act, a bill that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote. This is literally a solution in search of a problem—voting by non-citizens is already illegal and according to the pro-Trump Heritage Foundation, there are only 24 documented instances of non-citizens voting in federal elections from 2003 to 2023. But it fits the President’s false narrative that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen”, and—as some Republicans have stated openly—it may be the only way Republicans can hold the House, and maybe even the Senate, in the upcoming midterms.

Proponents of the bill argue that it simply requires a photo identification to vote, but the reality is much more complicated. To register to vote, people would have to present documents establishing their identity and citizenship. But nearly 50 percent of Americans don’t have a passport, and as many as 69 million married women that took their spouse’s name lack a matching birth certificate. The real impact of this bill would be to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters—with the greatest impact on minorities, the elderly, and the poor. Many on the far right have argued that Senate Republicans should vote to scrap the filibuster to get this legislation across the finish line, but—at least for now—it appears that this approach lacks the requisite support.

There are a host of other issues on the U.S. Congressional agenda—housing legislation, a major cryptocurrency bill, an extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and permitting reform, just to name a few. But the capacity of Congress to enact any significant legislation—which almost inevitably requires some level of bipartisan support—declines significantly the closer we get to elections in the fall.

The next couple of months will be make or break for these and other key issues.