This week: Congress starts year-end legislative sprint
By Jordain Carney - 11/29/21 06:01 AM EST
Lawmakers are returning to Washington, D.C., this week for a chaotic final stretch of the year as they face a pile up that could drag into the holidays.
The Senate is returning on Monday from the week-long Thanksgiving break, while the House will have its first votes for the week on Tuesday.
Both chambers have less than 10 scheduled working days before they are supposed to leave town on Dec. 13 through the end of the year — a timeline they are all but guaranteed to blow through as they face a packed to-do list despite the shrinking legislative schedule.
Government funding
Lawmakers have until the end of the week to figure out a way to fund the government and avoid a shutdown that would otherwise start on Saturday, Dec. 4.
Congress previously passed a stop-gap bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), to fund the government starting on Oct. 1, the beginning of the 2022 fiscal year, through Dec. 3
Though leadership is expected to use another CR to avoid a December shutdown, they haven’t yet said how long the stop-gap bill will be. They have until the end of Friday to pass the bill and get it to President Biden’s desk for his signature.
There have been divisions among Democrats and between the House and Senate over the length of the stop-gap funding bill.
House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) is backing a short-term continuing resolution that doesn’t go beyond December in an effort to keep pressure on Republicans to negotiate a larger fiscal 2022 funding deal.
But Republicans are also skeptical that they’ll be able to reach a deal with Democrats on a larger full-year funding deal by the end of December, given the months-long stalemate between top appropriators over the larger deal.
Democrats haven’t named a date for how long a weeks-long CR would run, but have floated that it could fund the government through roughly Dec. 17. That would give lawmakers two weeks to cut a deal or have to pass another stop-gap bill.
But other top Democrats, seeing a backed-up year-end calendar that leaves little wiggle room, are backing a longer bill that would fund the government into late February or March. That would prevent Congress from needing to vote twice on government funding in one month.
more
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/583321-this-week-congress-starts-year-end-legislative-sprint
