The House and Senate are rushing to complete government funding as the Sept. 30 government shutdown deadline looms and lawmakers eagerly return to their districts to campaign ahead of the November election.
Congressional leaders unveiled a largely “clean” three-month stopgap measure over the weekend that would keep government funding at current levels through Dec. 20 and provide an additional $231 billion for the Secret Service following two assassination attempts on former President Trump. House Republican aides said they hoped Congress would vote on the bill by Wednesday.
The stopgap measure, despite bipartisan and bicameral support, will surely anger hardline House conservatives who have pushed for a shorter standing resolution and Trump, who has insisted that the measure include a citizenship requirement for voting. That opposition could pose a problem for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as he tries to push legislation through regular order.
In addition to government funding, the House Task Force on Trump’s assassination attempt will hold its first hearing on Wednesday, focusing on the Secret Service’s use of state and local law enforcement at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Also in the House, former NFL quarterback Brett Favre is scheduled to testify before the Taxation Committee for a hearing on welfare misuse. And a statue of American musician Johnny Cash is scheduled to be unveiled.
The Senate is scheduled to hold hearings on the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity, the pricing of Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide products Ozempic and Wegovi, and women’s health care.
House and Senate go all-in on government funding
The final legislative sprint before the November elections begins Monday, when the House will begin considering the leadership’s three-month stopgap measure. House Republican aides say they will consider the stopgap measure until Wednesday, after which it will go to the Senate for a vote.
As soon as the product was released on Sunday, key congressional leaders quickly supported it.
“If both sides continue to work in good faith, I expect we can complete the CR this week, well ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement Sunday. “Bipartisan cooperation in both chambers is critical to getting this work done this week.”
The announcement of the three-month resolution comes after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) last week tried but failed to pass a six-month stopgap measure along with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, a Trump-backed bill that would require proof of citizenship to vote. A group of Republicans joined with Democrats to thwart the effort and set the spending process back on track.
In particular, the continuing resolution released Sunday adopted a shorter time frame and omitted the SAVE Act, two details that are likely to anger hardline House conservatives and Trump. The former president urged Republicans to vote against the continuing resolution, which does not include “every ounce” of the SAVE Act.
The stopgap measure is expected to have bipartisan support in both chambers. While leaders in both parties and congress have supported the package, opposition from hard-line House Republicans could be a problem when Johnson tries to push the bill through regular order later this week.
Because House Republican leaders aim to consider measures through regular order, the chamber must pass rules of procedure to begin debate on legislation. Rules votes are typically modest, partisan events supported by the majority party and opposed by the minority party. But throughout this Congress, hard-line House conservatives have opposed rules of procedure as a protest against basic legislation, and if this behavior is large enough, it could prevent measures from ever reaching the floor.
Because Republicans have a slim majority, they can afford to lose only four on party line votes.
It is unclear whether hard-line conservatives will vote against the rule blocking consideration of the bill. Johnson tried to explain his decision to come up with a “clean” short-term stopgap measure in a letter to colleagues on Sunday.
“As you know, we laid out our plan for a six-month CR last week with the SAVE Act, which would have allowed us to meet our funding obligations and do everything we could to ensure election security. Given the urgency of this issue, the American people deserve nothing less. We fell just short of the goal line, and we now need an alternative plan,” Johnson said.
Trump Assassination Attempt Task Force Holds First Hearing
The task force investigating the Trump assassination attempt is scheduled to hold its first hearing on Thursday, focusing on how the Secret Service mobilized state and local law enforcement to protect the former president at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The hearing, scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Thursday, is the task force’s first public statement since the House unanimously voted to establish it in July. The group has not said who will appear before the panel as witnesses.
The hearing comes more than two months after gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, opened fire at Trump’s Pennsylvania rally, grazing a rallygoer in the ear and leaving him bleeding. One rallygoer was killed and others were injured.
On Friday, the House unanimously approved expanding the task force to include the Sept. 15 assassination attempt on Trump at his golf course. The former president was playing at Trump International Golf Club in Florida when security found a gunman (later identified as Ryan Wesley Ruth, 58) hiding in a tree and planting a rifle on the course fence. Security guards who were patrolling the hole Trump was approaching shot Ruth, who fled the scene and was later arrested by local authorities.
The task force has already requested documents and interviews from the Secret Service, local law enforcement agencies, including law enforcement in Butler, Pennsylvania, and Crooks’ immediate family. Last week, the House unanimously passed a bill requiring the Secret Service to “apply the same standards” in determining how many agents it should use to protect the president, vice president, and major presidential and vice presidential candidates.
The task force is expected to produce its final report by December 13.
Brett Favre to Testify Before House; Johnny Cash Statue to Be Unveiled
Former NFL quarterback Brett Favre is scheduled to testify before the House Finance Committee this week as part of a hearing on misuse of welfare funds, according to ESPN.
The hearing, scheduled for 10:15 a.m. Tuesday, is titled “Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Reform: How State Welfare Fund Misuse Is Leaving Families in Need.”
According to ESPN, Favre, who played 20 seasons in the NFL, is one of several defendants in a civil lawsuit related to a Mississippi welfare case involving millions of dollars in TANF funds misused by wealthy individuals, according to state auditors. The civil suit seeks to recover the funds that were improperly used. Favre has not been criminally charged in connection with the case and has denied any wrongdoing.
Also this week, House leaders will unveil a statue of American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash, the second statue of the musician in the Arkansas Capitol, according to the Speaker’s Office.
Johnson, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the Arkansas congressional delegation, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-Arkansas) and members of the Cash family are scheduled to attend a ceremony to dedicate the law at 11 a.m. Tuesday.
Senate hearings on presidential immunity, semaglutide products, and women’s health care
Three high-profile hearings are scheduled for the Senate this Tuesday, the last day lawmakers can be in Washington before Election Day.
At 10 a.m. Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the Supreme Court’s “unprecedented” ruling on presidential immunity, which ruled that core presidential powers are immune from criminal prosecution. The ruling, handed down in July, was seen as a victory for Trump, sending federal cases related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election back to lower courts.
Witnesses scheduled to appear before the panel include Philip Allen Lacovara, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General and former counsel to the Watergate special prosecutor; Mary B. McCord, executive director of the Institute for the Defense and Defense of the Constitution at Georgetown University; Timothy Naftali, senior fellow at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Administration; Michael B. Mukasey, former attorney general and U.S. district judge; and Jennifer Mascott, director of the Separation of Powers Institute and assistant professor of law at Catholic University of Columbus School of Law.
Also on Tuesday at 10 a.m., the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) will hold a hearing on the health care company Novo Nordisk and its sales of semaglutide products Ozempic and Wegovi, which are more expensive in the United States than overseas.
Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, president and CEO of Novo Nordisk, is scheduled to testify before the panel. In a statement last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chairman of the HELP Committee, said there was “no rationale other than greed” for the amount Novo Nordisk was charging Ozempic.
“Unless Novo Nordisk ends their greed and significantly lowers the price of this drug, we must do everything we can to end their greed for them,” he added.
Finally, on Tuesday at 10 a.m., the Senate Finance Committee will hold a hearing on women’s health care titled “Chaos and Control: How Trump Criminalized Women’s Health Care.”
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