Congress’s lame-duck session to-do listing consists of same-sex marriage protections and electoral reforms

Now that Congress is again from its Thanksgiving recess, the lame duck session is firmly underway.

It’s anticipated to be a busy few weeks. Republicans have retaken the House, so Democrats have till the start of January to cross any lingering laws they’d prefer to get via earlier than shedding unified management.

On high of that, lawmakers nonetheless have to deal with must-pass payments like authorities funding and the authorization of protection spending, each of which they should wrap earlier than yr’s finish. If they don’t, the federal government might probably shut down and the navy might see main planning delays.

Beyond the routine enterprise on their docket, Democrats are eyeing two huge payments: laws to enshrine protections for same-sex marriage into federal regulation, and a measure to reform the way in which Congress certifies election outcomes. Other priorities, together with immigration reform and an assault weapons ban, have additionally been raised, although getting sufficient GOP help to get them via the Senate is prone to be extra of a protracted shot.

In the final twenty years, when congressional energy modified fingers, lame-duck classes have been frenetic largely as a result of they’re the ultimate alternative for a celebration to perform a few of their key priorities. According to Pew, these classes have accounted for greater than 1 / 4 of Congress’s legislative output in latest phrases. This yr is shaping as much as be no completely different.

Below is a rundown of some of the payments Congress has on faucet for its lame-duck session this yr — and the place they presently stand.

These payments are prone to advance

Same-sex marriage protections

The Senate is anticipated to cross same-sex marriage protections this week after 12 Republicans expressed their help for the invoice earlier this month. Because of modifications that senators made to the laws so as to win that GOP help, the House will even should vote on the invoice a second time, and is anticipated to cross it as effectively.

A procedural Senate vote in November revealed that the laws has sufficient help to clear a 60-vote threshold: Republican Sens. Susan Collins (ME), Rob Portman (OH), Thom Tillis (NC), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Mitt Romney (UT), Roy Blunt (MO), Richard Burr (NC), Shelley Moore Capito (WV), Cynthia Lummis (WY), Dan Sullivan (AK), Todd Young (IN) and Joni Ernst (IA) joined with the 50-member Democratic caucus to vote in favor of the invoice. Their votes counsel the laws will cross the Senate when lawmakers vote on last passage later this week following one other procedural vote on Monday.

The House accredited the invoice, with 47 Republicans becoming a member of 220 Democrats in voting sure, this previous July. The House will vote on the brand new model of the invoice — which accommodates added language on defending spiritual liberties — later this week.

Senate Democrats had postponed a vote on this invoice till after the midterms as a result of they believed they’d be capable of get extra Republican votes as soon as these lawmakers have been much less anxious about alienating conservative Christian voters. Republicans stated, in flip, that they’d be extra open to contemplating the laws if it didn’t really feel prefer it was getting used for political messaging throughout the midterms.

The invoice would repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, accredited throughout President Bill Clinton’s administration, which outlined marriage as a authorized union between a person and a girl, and would assure recognition of same-sex and interracial marriages underneath federal regulation.

The new laws is each historic and central to guaranteeing same-sex marriage protections. It grew to become a Democratic precedence following an opinion from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, wherein he floated probably revisiting Obergefell v. Hodges, the judicial determination that established such rights in 2015. The Supreme Court’s determination to overturn Roe v. Wade has raised the likelihood that the panel might do the identical with different precedents.

The help that the laws has represents a significant shift, although nearly all of each House and Senate Republicans are nonetheless against the measure. Some Republicans — together with Sens. John Cornyn (TX) and Marco Rubio (FL) — have beforehand stated they don’t help the invoice as a result of they don’t assume these rights are being threatened.

Electoral Count Act reforms

There’s been a bipartisan push to reform the Electoral Count Act, which lays out Congress’s position in counting electoral votes following a presidential election, but it surely’s nonetheless ready on a vote within the Senate. This invoice would replace the ECA in a bid to forestall elected officers from utilizing the method to overturn the election outcomes, like former President Donald Trump tried to do in 2021. Key reforms embrace clarifying the vice chairman’s position within the counting course of as purely ceremonial and growing the edge of lawmakers it takes to problem the outcomes of an election. Currently, it takes only one Senate and one House member to object to a state’s end result to ensure that Congress to contemplate and vote on the objection.

In September, the House handed its model of those reforms and the Senate is prone to do the identical within the coming weeks. At this level, greater than 10 Republicans have expressed their help for the invoice, a robust signal that it’s going to cross. As Vox’s Ben Jacobs has defined, these insurance policies aren’t sufficient to ensure that one other January 6 gained’t occur, although they will remove some authorized loopholes unhealthy actors might attempt to exploit.

The Senate’s model of the invoice differs from the House’s, nevertheless, so the decrease chamber will in all probability have to contemplate the laws once more. One distinction consists of the edge for difficult a state’s outcomes: The House’s invoice would require one-third of lawmakers in each chambers to signal on, whereas the Senate’s would require one-fifth of lawmakers.

The House might approve the Senate model after it’s handed, although the method might take longer if the 2 chambers search to reconcile among the variations within the payments. As Politico reported, there’s additionally a chance that lawmakers attempt to connect this laws to both the must-pass authorities funding package deal or the National Defense Authorization Act, given how little ground time Congress has left earlier than the tip of the yr.

Funding the federal government

The deadline to maintain the federal government open is now December 16, when a short-term spending invoice handed earlier this yr is because of expire.

Lawmakers have the choice of passing one other short-term invoice, often known as a unbroken decision (CR), or the full-year appropriations payments that will fund completely different authorities businesses and applications. Because they’re nonetheless negotiating figures for the bigger spending payments, Congress might cross a week-long CR to purchase themselves extra time and lengthen their deadline to December 23.

If they fail to approve both a full-year invoice or one other CR, the federal government would shut down, furloughing staff and considerably curbing sure providers.

Key appropriations requests embrace roughly $38 billion extra in assist to Ukraine in addition to $10 billion in pandemic assist to additional the distribution of vaccines and drugs. Both might see some Republican opposition, with the GOP break up on extra help for Ukraine, and a lot of the get together balking at extra cash to deal with the pandemic.

Authorizing protection spending

Another must-pass invoice that Congress has to contemplate is the National Defense Authorization Act, which establishes funding allocations for the protection division.

There was hypothesis that Sen. Joe Manchin’s allowing reform invoice, which beforehand garnered opposition from Republicans and progressive Democrats, may very well be hooked up to the NDAA. The prospect of that taking place is trying much less promising as a consequence of ongoing GOP pushback.

This invoice would streamline the approval course of for fossil gasoline and clear power tasks, and assure permits for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a pure gasoline venture in West Virginia, Manchin’s house state. Progressives had pushed again on the laws due to the inclusion of the pipeline and the priority that the approval course of Manchin envisions would dilute communities’ alternatives to weigh in on these tasks. Republicans, in the meantime, felt the reforms wouldn’t expedite tasks sufficient, and in addition weren’t inquisitive about giving Manchin a win following his help for the Inflation Reduction Act.

It’s not but clear whether or not Manchin will tweak his invoice to deal with a few of these issues, or if it should be dropped but once more after it wasn’t in a position to choose up adequate votes in September.

In mid-November, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy signaled an curiosity in suspending an NDAA vote till subsequent yr when House Republicans will be capable of ship extra of a message with the measure. McCarthy has argued that Democrats have been attempting to advertise “woke” insurance policies with the invoice, although he didn’t element what he meant by that. As Politico reported, Republican critiques have included insurance policies like masks mandates and variety initiatives within the navy.

Because sure House Democrats typically vote in opposition to the NDAA so as to specific their opposition to protection spending, the get together will probably want some Republican help so as to cross the invoice. Depending on how aggressively McCarthy sticks by and pushes a possible delay, that help may very well be harder to acquire this yr.

It can be shocking if Congress doesn’t cross the NDAA earlier than 2023, nevertheless, because it’s achieved so for the previous 61 years.

These payments have additionally been floated

(Maybe) elevating the debt ceiling

Democrats even have the possibility to boost the debt ceiling and stave off a probably calamitous stand-off that might occur subsequent yr if Republicans take the House.

Increasing or suspending the debt ceiling (principally, the quantity the US is ready to borrow) is a routine motion Congress has to take as a result of if it doesn’t, the US might default on its payments and destabilize the nation’s financial system. Despite that, it’s a second Republicans have indicated that they are going to use for leverage to safe cuts to funding for social applications and clear power initiatives.

Democrats might forestall this from occurring by approving a large improve whereas they nonetheless management each the House and the Senate this yr, although the US is just not projected to hit the debt ceiling till someday in 2023.

Because of that timing, in addition to Congress’s packed schedule, it’s not clear if they are going to get to that precedence earlier than subsequent yr.

Immigration reform

Congress is attempting, as soon as once more, to cross immigration reform, an ambition that’s been thwarted repeatedly within the final decade.

Some Democrats are pushing laws that would offer DACA recipients — undocumented immigrants who got here to the US as youngsters — a pathway to citizenship, after members of this system have been caught in limbo for years. The program has confronted quite a few court docket challenges, although the Biden administration has sought to maintain it intact. Legislation from Congress would assist present DACA recipients with extra everlasting standing and provide a pathway to citizenship that doesn’t presently exist.

The major holdup for this laws is within the Senate, the place it wants 10 Republicans to signal on so as to cross. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), a longtime chief of immigration negotiations, has stated he is aware of of 4 or 5 Republicans who’d be open to the invoice, however the laws would require extra to really advance.

An assault weapons ban

In the wake of a collection of mass shootings in latest weeks, Democrats have raised the potential of approving an assault weapons ban, although the measure isn’t prone to have adequate Republican help within the Senate.

Such a ban would bar the sale of semi-automatic firearms, that are in a position to hearth off many rounds of ammunition extraordinarily shortly. As the Associated Press’s Colleen Long, Mary Clare Jalonick, and Lindsay Whitehurst write, these weapons embrace “a group of high-powered guns or semi-automatic long rifles, like an AR-15, that can fire 30 rounds fast without reloading.” In November, a shooter used an assault-style rifle to kill 5 folks and injure a number of others at an LGBTQ night time membership in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), a number one architect of Congress’s bipartisan gun management package deal, famous Senate backing can be the first impediment, however that Democrats would proceed to push the problem. Previously, Congress handed an assault weapons ban in 1994, however lawmakers have been unable to resume it after it lapsed a decade later.

“The House has already passed it. It’s sitting in front of the Senate. Does it have 60 votes in the Senate right now? Probably not,” Murphy stated in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. “But let’s see if we can try to get that number as close to 60 as possible.”

Recent lame geese have been fairly productive

Lame-duck classes have been as soon as fairly sporadic affairs, although they’ve change into way more frequent, and productive, lately.

Since 2000, particularly, a good chunk of Congress’s output has truly taken place throughout lame-duck classes, per Pew. During the final Congress, almost 44 % of what it handed — together with a significant coronavirus aid package deal — was accredited throughout this session.

Other energetic lame-duck classes embrace 2010, when Democrats misplaced management of the House, and handed a number of main payments earlier than they handed it over to Republicans. They repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” handed a nuclear arms discount treaty with Russia and accredited an extension of tax cuts established throughout the Bush administration, in keeping with the Atlantic. Prior to the shift in congressional energy in 2019, Republicans additionally used the lame-duck session to approve the First Step Act, a groundbreaking felony justice reform invoice, in addition to a reauthorization of the farm invoice, which authorizes spending for Agriculture Department applications.

This yr is poised to be one other busy lame-duck session, significantly since that is Democrats’ final probability to shepherd payments via earlier than Republicans regain House management.

Update, November 28, 2:45 pm ET: This story was initially revealed on November 15 and has been up to date to mirror developments concerning particular payments.