It’s the Tuesday after Labor Day, which means U.S. senators are trickling back into D.C. in preparation for three weeks of fighting over judges, messaging bills, and of course government funding. The House is out for another week, but they’ve done most of the work that was supposed to happen by now already, so the action for the next three weeks is going to be primarily on the Senate side, where the Republican filibuster looms large. Democrats are likely going to exploit that Republican filibuster and make them look even worse on issues like marriage equality and abortion.
The fiscal year ends in 24 days, which means government funding ends in 24 days. Congress has not passed all the necessary 12 individual funding bills for 2023, as usual, which means they will have to pass a continuing resolution (CR), the bill that keeps funding agencies at the current level of spending until the individual agency appropriations bills are done. Because at least one chamber of Congress—the House—is as likely as not to flip to Republican control in November’s midterm election, Republicans are going to put up a fight against anything extra President Joe Biden or the Democrats want to include in that CR. It’s the main and possibly only vehicle for substance for the rest of the year.
Last Friday, the White House made a $47.1 billion request for funds, including: $11.7 for Ukraine; $22.4 for COVID-19 relief to prepare for the expected surge in cases this fall; $2 billion to shore up U.S. energy supplies; $6.5 billion in natural disaster relief; and $3.9 billion to fight the monkeypox virus outbreak. The Ukraine aid and emergency disaster funding will be the easiest concessions from Republicans since few of them are willing to publicly ally with Russia and since some of their states will be getting that disaster assistance. They will continue to fight pandemic money because they don’t care how people die or are permanently incapacitated by a preventable virus.
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That will simmer on the back burner in the Senate while behind-the-scenes funding negotiations play out. On the front end, the Senate will continue to push judges. Not enough of them, because they went into August recess with dozens of vacancies needing to be filled. There isn’t time now to get the nominations made and the confirmations done, meaning a Republican Senate takeover will stop all of Biden’s great progress on the judiciary. Getting judges done will be a “major portion of the schedule” this month, one Democratic aide told Politico a few weeks ago.
Judiciary Committee members feel the angst over the 77 current vacancies and 40 pending ones. “Do I share people’s sense of urgency about confirming as many judges as possible? Absolutely. But relative to other administrations, we are making a significantly good pace,” said Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey. “I am working with other members of the Judiciary Committee to try to accelerate this as much as possible.”
Committee Chair Dick Durbin is a little defensive, probably because he could be doing more to push through more judges if he’d stop allowing Republicans to veto them through the blue slip process, the courtesy of not moving nominees until their home state senators agree. “We’re producing judges at a historic clip — good, quality people with thorough investigations, and they’re piling up on the floor,” Durbin told Politico. “I’m urging my colleagues to set aside some time.”
Nominees will take up a big chunk of Senate floor while they’re waiting for legislative action to churn. One of those pieces of legislation is probably going to be enshrining marriage equality in federal law, a political necessity for many Democrats since conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas took direct aim at it while he was voting to overturn federal abortion rights. Here Majority Leader Chuck Schumer seems not to want to make Republicans take a tough vote, inexplicably, and is letting Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine get in on the action—the surest way Republicans have of wasting Senate time to make good ideas go away. In this case, she’s working on watering it down for “religious freedom” protections.
Democrats, particularly Rev. Sen. Raphael Warnock from Georgia, would like to pass an insulin costs cap bill as well. Warnock has made that a key issue in his reelection campaign and needs a win—or a Republican filibuster—before November. Republicans stripped a $35 per month cap on insulin costs for people with private insurance from the Inflation Reduction Act bill, though the cap for Medicare enrollees survived. Seven Republicans voted with Democrats to keep that provision in the bill, but it wasn’t enough. It would be a very tough and important vote to make Republicans retake as a standalone vote, and dare them to filibuster just weeks before an election.
The House, which again isn’t coming back until next week, will be doing an awful lot of waiting around to see what the Senate accomplishes. There is, however, some committee work happening this week, including ongoing Jan. 6 committee work. There likely will be at least one more public hearing in September from that committee, and possibly more in October.
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