Bills Introduced – 12-19-24

Yesterday, with both the House and Senate in session, there were 77 bills introduced. Two of those bills would receive additional coverage in this blog:

HR 10515 Making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025, and for other purposes. Cole, Tom [Rep.-R-OK-4].

S 5610 A bill to provide grants to support continuing education in election administration or cybersecurity for election officials and employees. Klobuchar, Amy [Sen.-D-MN] 

NOTE: HR 10515 was voted down by the House last night. See my post here. Interestingly the bill still has not been officially printed by the GPO. Probably a waste of time and money at this point.

HR 10515 Failed in House – Trump Revised CR

After President-Elect Trump objected to the language of HR 10445, Speaker Johnson came up with a new version of the CR that met Trumps requirement, HR 10515 (draft version), the American Relief Act, 2025. The House took up that bill this evening and rejected the revised CR by a vote of 174 to 235. Thirty-five Republicans rejected the leaderships bill along with all but two Democrats. Politico.com is reporting that Democrats rejected the bill because they were left out of the negotiations today.

There were two reasons for the Republican opposition to the bill. First, it was another continuing resolution and there is a hard-core faction that will never support anything but the 12 standard spending bills. The second item was the addition demanded by Trump, the temporary extension of the debt limit (§5106). There are many in the Republican party that would not support such an extension without the inclusion of spending limits.

There is an outside chance that Johnson will bite-the-bullet and bring HR 10445 to the floor for a vote. There will be fewer Republican votes, but there will be a large number of Democrats that would support that bill, perhaps enough to make the supermajority limit required for passage under the suspension of the rules. The number of Republican votes will depend on individuals weighing the Trump/Musk threats versus being held responsible for a holiday government shutdown.

Regardless of what happens with the spending deadline, the Republicans have a real problem facing them on January 3^rd when the House convenes for the 119^th Congress. It is now obvious to even the most hopeful observer that Johnson will not be able to get 217 votes for Speaker in the opening vote. Too many people are upset with the way this CR issue was dealt with. And it does not look like Johnson is a good enough horse trader to get the requisite votes even further down the line. A bigger problem is the Party has no realistic backup candidate that can do any better. There are just too many bitter feelings and divergent views of where the Party should be going. January 2025 is going to be interesting, even before the 20^th.