Next CR Dropped 9-22-24

Yesterday, the House Rules Committee published a copy of the next version of the FY 2025 continuing resolution that the House will try to pass this week. The Committee will meet this afternoon to craft the rule (almost certainly a closed rule; 1 hour debate, and no floor amendments) for the consideration of the bill (which will be formally introduced today). This is a relatively clean CR through December 20^th, 2024 {§106(3)}.

Division A is a mainly formulaic continuation of current (FY 2024) spending through that date. It does include some additional funding for a variety of relatively non-controversial programs. The one that may draw some attention is §136, this provides additional funding for the Secret Service “for operations necessary to carry out protective operations including the 2024 Presidential Campaign and National Special Security Events”. Access to this additional funding is predicated on the delivery to Congress of the Secret Service’s “Mission Assurance Report” on the first Trump assassination attempt. A summary of that report was made public on Friday.

Division B provides extension of various authorities that expire with the fiscal year. This list keeps on growing larger every year. No the CFATS program is not included in this list.

There are three votes on the House Rules Committee that are ‘controlled’ by House Freedom Caucus. In general, members of that Caucus object to the use of continuing resolutions and omnibus spending bills. It is not clear that these three members will vote with their fellow Republicans on this Rule. If they vote with the Democrats (as they have done on similar measures), that would kill the Rule. Then Speaker Johnson will be forced to bring the CR to the floor under the suspension of the rules process. Sufficient Democrats (most actually) would be expected to support this ‘clean’ CR for the bill to pass, but Johnson would pay a political price for that move. How severe that price would be remains to be seen.

I would not be surprised to see one or more of the Caucus members to abstain (or be physically absent) from this afternoon’s vote on the rule. This would allow them to claim that they opposed the CR, but would not derail its consideration under a rule. Even if all three abstained, the Republicans would have a one vote majority for the consideration of the rule.