Senate returns as funding clock ticks

The Senate returns to session after a long August recess Tuesday with a pressing task on its agenda: fund the government by Sept. 30 or risk a shutdown.

Congressional leaders have recognized that they will need to pass a continuing resolution by the end of the month to avert a shutdown and buy more time to pass all 12 appropriations bills, but the path to that stopgap bill is full of questions and complications.

The result, in large part, will hinge on the House, where hard-line conservatives are vowing to vote against a continuing resolution unless it includes policy provisions that address the situation at the southern border, “weaponization” at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and “woke policies” at the Pentagon. Those requests, however, will not fly with Democrats in the lower chamber, and will be dead-on-arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

“It’s a pretty big mess,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said of the appropriations process last week.

The House does not return to Washington until next week, giving the Senate a head start as leaders look to avoid an end-of-the-month shutdown. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will be in Japan this week for the Group of 7 (G7) Speakers’ Meeting.

Attention this week will also be focused on McConnell after he froze for roughly 30 seconds at a press gaggle last week — his second such episode in recent weeks. Questions are swirling about whether the longtime GOP leader is withholding information about his health, and what his political future may look like following the incidents.

Senate stares down government funding deadline

Top of the Senate’s to-do list this week — and for the entire month — will be funding the government and staving off a shutdown.

Leaders of both parties and chambers have said that a continuing resolution will be necessary to keep the government’s lights on for a few more weeks — or months — as lawmakers hash out their differences and come to a consensus on the full slate of 12 appropriations bills.

But getting a continuing resolution to clear both chambers and land on President Biden’s desk is shaping up to be a tough task.

In the House, members of the conservative Freedom Caucus are demanding that language dealing with the border, “weaponization” at the DOJ and “woke” Pentagon policies be included in any continuing resolution — language that Democrats will never support.

And then there is the question of disaster funding and assistance for Ukraine — both of which were included in a supplemental request the White House unveiled last month. The Office of Management and Budget said it was requesting the supplemental “as part of a potential short-term continuing resolution for the first quarter of FY 2024,” but it is unclear if it will make it into the stopgap bill.

A handful of House Republicans are opposed to the Ukraine funding, and some lawmakers are requesting that support for Kyiv and the disaster assistance — which would help individuals following Hurricane Idalia and the Maui wildfires — be split.

With so much uncertainty heading into the September session, both parties are already preparing for the blame game.

“When the Senate returns next week, our focus will be on funding the government and preventing House Republican extremists from forcing a government shutdown,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote in a dear colleague letter last week.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said Schumer would be to blame for a potential shutdown.

“The one person who is really pushing for a government shutdown is Chuck Schumer. And this is something he thinks would help him politically as he tries to hang on to the U.S. Senate, which, of course, we know is going to be very difficult for him to do and probably impossible,” Blackburn said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

Beyond the continuing resolution, the House and Senate are a ways apart on the 12 appropriations bills. The Senate marked up their measures at the levels laid out in the debt limit bill — crafted by Biden and McCarthy — while the House went ahead and marked up their legislation at lower levels, putting the two chambers on a collision course.

If all 12 appropriations bills are not passed by the start of 2024, a 1-percent cut will be made across-the-board — a provision included in the debt limit bill that was meant to incentivize Congress to clear the dozen bills.

All eyes on McConnell following second freeze-up

All eyes will be focused on McConnell when the Senate reconvenes this week following his freeze-up last week.

While taking questions from reporters in Covington, Ky., McConnell, 81, froze for roughly 30 seconds, standing unresponsive at the podium. He resumed the press gaggle following the episode but needed an aide to repeat the questions being asked.

The incident came just more than a month after McConnell had a similar episode at the Capitol: While giving his opening remarks at his weekly press conference in July, the GOP leader froze for roughly 20 seconds.

Following last week’s episode, McConnell’s spokesperson said the GOP leader “felt momentarily lightheaded and paused during his press conference today,” which was similar to the response given following the July incident.

The next day, the attending Capitol physician said McConnell was “medically clear to continue with his schedule as planned,” adding that “Occasional lightheadedness is not uncommon in concussion recovery and can also be expected as a result of dehydration.” The Kentuckian fell at a private dinner at a hotel in Washington in March, leaving him with a concussion and a minor rib fracture.

Despite being cleared, questions are swirling about whether McConnell’s team is concealing details regarding his health. In addition to the March fall, the GOP leader fell two other times this year, in February and July.

Following the first freeze-up in July, a spokesperson for McConnell said the GOP leader “plans to serve his full term in the job they overwhelmingly elected him to do.” His term in leadership ends in 2025 — the conference chooses new leaders each Congress — and he is up for reelection in 2026.

By and large, McConnell’s Senate colleagues are standing by him following the second freeze-up. He spoke to members of his leadership team following the incident, according to spokespeople for the senators, who said the GOP leader was feeling fine and like himself.

That message was echoed on the Sunday show circuit.

“I spoke with Mitch yesterday afternoon and told him I was going to be doing an interview and I wanted to personally touch base with him before I did that, and he was in good shape,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“There’s no doubt in my mind that he is perfectly capable of continuing on at this stage of the game,” he later added.

Blackburn told Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that she heard secondhand that McConnell was “alert and fine.”

“I have talked to people who were with him right after that, and he was alert and fine and moving forward, asking questions, very involved with the meeting that he was attending, and seemed to be on top of his game,” she said.

According to Politico, however, some Republican senators have discussed possibly calling a special meeting to discuss their leadership future when the chamber reconvenes, a person directly involved in the conversations told the outlet. Five GOP senators are needed to compel the gathering.

Leadership is not involved in those talks, the source noted.

McCarthy travels to Japan for G7 gathering

McCarthy is scheduled to attend the G7 Speakers’ Meeting in Japan this week, his office confirmed to The Hill.

The gathering, according to Japan’s House of Representatives, “provides an opportunity for the presiding officers of the parliaments of the G7 countries and of the European Parliament to gather together to frankly discuss parliamentary responses to international issues and concerns over parliamentary systems in their countries, usually setting two agendas.”

It is set to take place from Sept. 7-10.

Hearings

Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “AUKUS: A Generational Opportunity to Deepen Our Security Partnerships with Australia and the United Kingdom”

• When: Wednesday at 10 a.m.

• Witnesses: Jessica Lewis, assistant secretary of the Bureau of Political Military Affairs at the State Department; Mara E. Karlin, performing the duties of the deputy undersecretary of defense for policy assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and capabilities at the Defense Department; Kin Moy, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the State Department

Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Government Operations and Border Management: “After Apprehension: Tracing DHS Responsibilities After Title 42”

• When: Wednesday at 2:30 p.m.

• Witnesses: David S. Bemiller, chief of law enforcement operations directorate U.S. Border Patrol at U.S. Customs and Border Protection; Matthew Davies, executive director of admissibility and passenger programs office of field operations at U.S. Customs and Border Protection; Daniel A. Bible, deputy executive associate director enforcement and removal operations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Andrew Davidson, acting deputy director at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources: “Examine Recent Advances in Artificial Intelligence and the Department of Energy’s Role in Ensuring U.S. Competitiveness and Security in Emerging Technologies”

• When: Thursday at 10 a.m.

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