As Republicans and Democrats prepare to battle each other for control of the House and Senate, they are also scrambling to pass legislative priorities that require working together — a tall order after months of bitter infighting.
Before members depart for a Memorial Day recess, the House GOP majority will try this week to ram through a party-line immigration enforcement package but also attempt to pass bipartisan housing affordability legislation and a bill that would revamp college athletics regulations.
Senate Republicans, when not moving the filibuster-skirting immigration bill through their own chamber, are also expected to be conferring with Democratic counterparts on bipartisan deals around a companion college athletics proposal and a framework for overhauling the federal permitting process for energy projects. There’s continued discussion on how to resolve differences on legislation that would fundamentally change how digital assets are regulated after the so-called Clarity Act advanced out of the Senate Banking Committee last week following House passage last summer.
And Rep. Jason Smith of House Ways and Means and Sen. Mike Lee of Senate Energy and Natural Resources, two of the most notoriously partisan committee chairs, struck conciliatory tones in recent days about their desire to work with Democrats on a framework for the taxation of cryptocurrency and streamlining energy permitting, respectively.
There’s also a desire for collaboration not just between the parties but between Republican-led chambers, too — a sentiment GOP senators shared with Speaker Mike Johnson last week when he crossed the Capitol to attend the Senate Republicans’ weekly closed-door luncheon.
“Let’s be working on things” was the message Senate Republicans conveyed to Johnson, according to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). “Progress on things like that are good.”
Johnson, in an interview later, called the meeting “a great visit” where “we talked about how the two chambers can and should work closely together. We’re committed to that.”
Interviews with more than a dozen lawmakers revealed a genuine interest in making progress on long-stalled measures in the few short months before the home stretch of midterm campaigning begins. Members of both parties also see passing legislation as critical to combating a narrative with voters that Capitol Hill is mired in all-time political dysfunction and lack of productivity.
“I believe in bipartisan work,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.). “But it has been my experience that the closer you get to an election, the harder it is to get that kind of work done.”
Despite the happy talk amid the rapidly closing window for legislative action, however, real challenges and a lack of trust remain. The latest curve ball: President Donald Trump’s social media post over the weekend proposing Republicans wedge a partisan election security bill into the pending housing affordability package or a reauthorization of a key spy authority.
Even before that demand, however, Johnson — who often finds himself trying to cater to his most conservative members to move bills on the House floor — wasthreatening to blow up bipartisan and bicameral negotiations on the housing bill, which the GOP sees as central to its midterm message on lowering costs for everyday Americans. The speaker has said he plans to put the measure on the floor this week and allow his members to vote on policy changes Senate Republicans and the White House warn they can’t accept.
Johnson is also negotiating changes to the college athletics bill known as the SCORE Act. That’s to appease hard-liners who have issues with provisions in the bill relating to scholarships for international students, among other things. Already, some tweaks were made to woo Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a former holdout.
“We don’t know the status of the overall bill. It really just depends on what Speaker Chip Roy says we can do,” quipped Rep. Shomari Figures of Alabama, one of the Democrats who has been working on the legislation that would set new standards for how college athletes are paid.
Trump has made it clear he wants to see passage of the SCORE Act, saying in recent months he’ll use his executive authority to enforce a set of rules surrounding eligibility, transfers and compensation in college sports that aim to protect college athletes.
Lawmakers also said in interviews this week that there are bipartisan talks underway about a reauthorization of a landmark public lands package known as the Great American Outdoors Act, a regulatory framework governing the use of artificial intelligenceand a bill to boost American manufacturing.
Smith, of Missouri, told attendeesof a tax conference Thursday that the Ways and Means panel can “do things on health care, trade and tax from a bipartisan perspective, and I intend to do that in the next few months.”
Lee, of Utah, in a recent interview said there was “a lot of shared interest” in a permitting deal and that lawmakers are exchanging drafts with hopes of releasing bill text in the coming weeks.
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), meanwhile, emphasized there’s also a list of must-pass bills that can’t be ignored. That includes the government funding bills, the farm bill and a surface transportation bill.
The House passed its first appropriations bill last week to fund the Department of Veterans Affairs in an encouraging 400-15 vote, but other funding bills won’t be so easy. It also passed its version of the farm bill earlier in the month alongside a separate measure to allow year-round sales of a gasoline blend known as E15, which a Senate GOP aide last week called a “nonstarter.”
“All of them have to be done,” Lankford said. “This is not a ‘pick your favorite child.’ … Whatever we can get on first and get going, we need to get going on it.”
Mia McCarthy and Brian Faler contributed to this report.
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