Speaker Johnson’s Priorities, Budget Process, & Weekly Plan

10/28/23
 
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from Heritage Action,
10/28/23:

To better understand how Speaker Johnson intends to lead, one can look to a “Dear Colleague” letter he released to the Republican conference on Monday, before his nomination for Speaker. The former constitutional lawyer highlighted the need to “restore trust” and “advance a comprehensive policy agenda supported by Conference consensus.” This was not his only assurance to the House conference to be a team player. Speaker Johnson pledged to “promote individual members” and “engage members in productive working groups.”

These promises of teamwork are a recognition of reality — the Republicans control the House by a very slim majority, and any work that is going to get done will require near unanimity to complete it.

And there is much work to do before a November 17th deadline to fund the government. Currently, only 4 out of 12 appropriations bills have been passed on the House floor, and none of the House’s bills have been taken up in the Senate.

The schedule of the House floor is always subject to change, but this is what the next couple of weeks look like for the House to take up the remaining appropriations bills:

  • Week of October 23: consider Energy & Water
  • Week of October 30: consider Legislative Branch; Interior & Environment; Transportation, Housing, & Urban Development
  • Week of November 6: consider Financial Services & General Government; Commerce, Justice & Science
  • Week of November 13: Labor/HHS, Ag

The House must pass these bills to put themselves in the best position to outmaneuver and out leverage Chuck Schumer’s bloated spending bills in the Senate. So far the House has already passed 4 of the 12 appropriations and the Senate has passed a grand total of 0. Even after 22 days without a Speaker, the House is further along in the process than the Senate.