Welcome to Washington: How Ugly Will the Lame-Duck Be?

When Congress returns to Washington in two weeks, the political landscape, if not the actual levers of power, will have shifted. There will be about six working weeks between the midterm elections and the swearing in of the 120th Congress, and in that time, things could grow especially acrimonious. Welcome to Washington, where Democrats are widely expected to take control of the House and possibly even the Senate next year. In the mad dash between Election Day and the swearing-in of the next Congress, President Trump is likely to make a number of demands and Republican allies will take one last swing at several legislative items. The outcome of the midterms will obviously instruct the degree to which Republicans will push their leadership. If only the House flips to Democrats, then the agenda will likely be contentious, yet mundane in the context of this era of partisanship. Republicans and Democrats hope to move a permitting reform bill. The House is expected to take up the Protect College Sports Act, a bill to codify national standards for intercollegiate athletics regulations. The biggest issue for Congress before December will be funding the federal government — something that has sometimes become a Herculean task for the legislative branch. Republicans and Democrats are still struggling to deal with federal regulations around grant issuing.The White House is attempting to assert greater control over the grantmaking process, though the Senate Appropriations Committee — led by Senator Susan Collins, the endangered Maine Republican — has been pushing back quite hard. Ms. Collins is hoping to block the new proposed rule which would give political appointees far more power over how grant money is allocated. If Democrats can take the House, then the December funding deadline will be a kind of last stand for the president’s budget chief, Russell Vought, who is leading the push to remake the federal grant process to bring that flow of money under a greater level of executive control.At best, though, Mr. Vought can likely hope for a one-year reprieve in the situation of facing down a Democratic House majority, as that caucus, likely led by a Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, would almost certainly try again to block that rule in the next round of government funding talks in the fall. If Republicans lose both chambers, however, then one can expect the GOP to sprint through the January 3, 2027 deadline, which is when the next crop of congressional lawmakers will take their oaths. One Republican, Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio, told reporters in mid-October that his party ought to prepare for a kind of “Last Supper” in which lawmakers work 24 hours per day, seven days per week, until the beginning of the next Congress in order to codify as much of Mr. Trump’s agenda as possible. “We will do a reconciliation bill. One way or the other we will,” Mr. Moreno told reporters on October 15, referring to the budget reconciliation process which allows lawmakers to pass bills without clearing the Senate’s 60-vote cloture threshold. “Obviously, if we lose control of Congress, it’ll be ‘the Last Supper.’”One key issue for which Republicans would likely push through reconciliation is a steep increase in defense spending worth around $350 billion. Through the normal appropriations process, Democrats and Republicans agreed on an annual Pentagon budget of about $1.1 trillion, though Mr. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have requested an even $1.5 trillion.The vast majority of Republicans is on board with a reconciliation package. They include the chairman of the subcommittee which funds the Pentagon every year, Senator Mitch McConnell. The retiring conservative and longest serving leader in Senate history says Mr. Trump needs to get tough on Russia before they start talking about military funding, however. “Mr. Trump has high hopes for a lame-duck legislative agenda, including the one-time defense spending,” Mr. McConnell wrote Sunday in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. “Passing this agenda will require working with Republicans who know the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. Ending the obeisance to Mr. Putin may be table stakes for the end-of-year legislation.” Where Americans can expect the greatest level of acrimony, however, is if Democrats take the Senate and a member of the Supreme Court — Justice Samuel Alito, say, or Justice Clarence Thomas — resigns in the lame-duck session in order to guarantee an ideological compatriot fill a seat, not unlike how Justice Stephen Breyer retired before the 2022 midterms.Justice Alito has said he will sit for the remainder of this court term, however, and Justice Thomas, nearing the record for longest-serving justice, likely has an affinity for the idea of breaking that record. As the Sun’s editors have written, Justice Alito, regardless of next week’s electoral outcomes, may be too young to retire.

Welcome to Washington: How Ugly Will the Lame-Duck Be?

Welcome to Washington: How Ugly Will the Lame-Duck Be?

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