Expect a do-nothing Congress for next 7 months
When elections loom, lawmakers hunker down
WASHINGTON – There are just over seven months before lawmakers face the voters in the November midterm elections, but don’t expect much legislating on Capitol Hill in that time period.
In mid-March, Congress passed a $1.3 trillion spending bill funding the government through Sept. 30, and then lawmakers went home for a two-week spring break. When they return next week, expect plenty of squabbling over a number of high-profile items that remain unresolved, but actually passing much of it is unlikely.
All House members and one-third of the Senate are up for re-election in November. Members of both parties face tough races, and for some that starts with primary challenges from members of their own party. If history is any indication, congressional leadership in both parties will want to protect vulnerable members and won’t push them to take difficult votes over the remainder of the session. Neither side will want to give a political victory to the other.
Here are some major pieces of legislation that have been discussed but are unlikely to move:
DACA protections
There are just under 700,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and received protections from deportation under an Obama-era order, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. President Trump reversed that order in the fall and gave Congress six months to come up with a permanent solution.
There is bipartisan support for some form of legal protections for at least a fraction of the so-called DREAMers. But how far the protections go, how many people are covered and what immigration enforcement provisions are passed in return is all up for debate. Trump had said he would support a path to citizenship for 1.8 million DREAMers, but in ex- change he wanted $25 billion for a wall along the southern border and drastic cuts to legal immigration. That offer was considered too extreme by nearly all Democrats and even some Republicans. On Sunday and Monday, the president tweeted that a DACA deal was dead.
Congress remains frozen on the question, but a Supreme Court ruling last month took away some of the urgency. The court declined to fast-track the case, ensuring protections will last at least through the fall.
Obamacare stabilization
Members from both parties support efforts to reinstate the government subsidies paid to health insurers that Trump ended this fall. The subsidies helped insurance companies reduce out-of-pocket costs for low- and middle-income consumers. Without them, insurers could raise premiums on other people to help offset the loss.
Legislation has been introduced that reinstates the subsidies and provides funding to help states set up high-risk insurance pools to provide coverage for people with high medical costs. That proposal almost made it into the $1.3 trillion spending bill that passed before Congress broke for Easter recess, but language that banned Medicaid funding from being used for abortions stopped Democrats from backing it, and fiscal conservatives refused to spend more money on what they said amounted to an insurance bailout.
Infrastructure
Trump has vowed to fix the nation’s crumbling roads and bridges and has proposed a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan for the next decade, with the $200 billion federal share of that money shifted from unspecified government agencies.
But his approach is light on details — he wants Congress to hash those out. Though there is bipartisan support for something to be done with infrastructure — and the spending bill authorized a boost in infrastructure spending across the country — it is unlikely that a large package will move through Congress over the next year. Most Democrats are unlikely to want to give the president a win on a signature campaign promise, and Republicans are uncomfortable spending so much money.
A couple of things that could happen — in the short term
❚ Government funding. The spending bill Trump signed March 23 keeps the government funded through the end of September. In theory, Congress would pass a series of appropriations bills that fund the government through the following fiscal year before Oct. 1. But for more than 20 years, Congress has not passed more than one-third of its appropriations bills on time, according to the Pew Research Center. Instead, lawmakers rely on short-term spending bills to keep funding at current levels while they fight about the details.
If Congress is unable to agree on a short-term spending bill, also called a continuing resolution, the government goes into a partial shutdown. Lawmakers in both parties are aware of the optics of a government shutdown right before voters head to the polls. Keep an eye out for a short-term spending bill that will keep the lights on, at least through the election.
❚ Flood insurance renewal. The National Flood Insurance Program, run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was due to expire on Oct. 1 last year but has remained in business because of extensions. The latest extension — contained in the $1.3 trillion federal spending bill Trump signed March
23 — runs out July 31. It isn’t clear what will happen to the program, but if Congress can’t agree on how to renew or extend it before the end of July, a lapse could disrupt many home sales in floodprone areas because FEMA won’t be able to issue new policies.
Congress has been divided about what to do about the flood program in the long term, largely because some solutions could increase rates so much that homeowners would face the possibility of going uninsured or abandoning their homes. Of the roughly 5 million flood insurance policies in effect, nearly
60% are in just five states — Florida, Texas, Louisiana, California and New Jersey — that have both Democrats and Republicans in power in Washington.