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It’s a hot political season, but you can find a parking space on Capitol Hill
Oddly, it's a quiet period on Capitol Hill as the summer heads towards September. No budget yet for the federal government.
Oddly, it’s a quiet period in Congress as the summer heads towards September. No budget yet for the federal government. Stalled negotiation on the National Defense Authorization Act. What’s going on? Here on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin is Bloomberg Government Deputy News Director Loren Duggan.
Interview transcript:
Tom Temin It seems like world events and the government, the political season are rushing headlong into we don’t know what. Congress – nothing going on now, though?
Loren Duggan They have left for five weeks. The next votes aren’t scheduled until September 9 in either chamber. So we have this elongated August recess, which is typical, but it feels even a little bit longer. Obviously, some lawmakers will be going to Chicago in a couple of weeks for the Democratic convention as the GOP had. It’s last month, but you’re correct, for most of the summer legislating is pretty much over on Capitol Hill.
Tom Temin Yeah. And so when they come back, there is electioneering they need to do between then and November, the entire house being up for reelection, a third of the Senate. And so everyone kind of agrees that the inevitable will happen once again: no budget come September 30.
Loren Duggan That’s right. I think the top item of business when they get back in September will be passing some sort of stopgap spending measure, making sure that the government is funded past October 1, probably past the election. And then there might be a question about how far past the election do you go, because the results of the presidential and congressional elections could have an impact on whether you make a deal in the lame duck or wait until 2025 to try to resolve that. And what we’ve seen though, is the House and Senate are busy on appropriations, but are very far apart. And that doesn’t bode well for coming to a fast agreement.
Tom Temin And in preparation for the return of the members, does the staff hang around? Is there work going on in the office buildings, and in the brick-lined basements of Capitol Hill?
Loren Duggan Definitely a slower pace, probably not past five o’clock too much. Because you know, the members aren’t here and there won’t be votes. But the work goes on and drafting legislation or talking or working on some of these pieces of legislation behind the scene that do have a chance perhaps to move in the post-August and later sessions of Congress. So there will be work going on: meeting with constituents who drop by and maybe even the member comes every now and then over the break. But it is quieter up on Capitol Hill to be sure.
Tom Temin And you know, the calculus has shifted with respect to the election, and therefore who will get to control that 2025 budget and beyond. Again, can’t possibly make any real predictions. But it does seem to have gotten, let’s say closer since the ascent of Kamala Harris to the Democratic position, as opposed to Joe Biden. And so that could affect how people think, how members think about budget talks, I imagine.
Loren Duggan Definitely. And you know, on the congressional side, the margins today are very close, and they could be very close next year as well. That’s 51-49 democratic in the Senate today, if you count the independents who go with them, and then 220 to, what, 212 in the House? Very narrow in both. And what both parties would like is to obviously win or keep control of the chambers they have; we’ll see what they do there. I mean, the Senate is a really tough road for the Democrats to hold on, because they basically lost the seat in West Virginia with Manchin leaving, and Jim Justice likely to take that. So if you start with 50-50, the Democrats may want a better deal today than the one they could get next year. And they’ll be watching for those results very closely in November and December will be very key to figure out what they do now versus later.
Tom Temin We’re speaking with Loren Duggan, deputy news director at Bloomberg Government. And the National Defense Authorization Act, the NDAA, they consider their deadline there not the fiscal year, but the calendar year. And so a little bit more time to get that done, which they always do manage to do.
Loren Duggan Yeah, I always say nobody wants to be the one who breaks the 60-plus year streak of doing that legislation. So what we’ve seen there is the House passed a bill that came out of committee very bipartisan, but on the floor with things that were adopted became very partisan. The Armed Services Committee in the Senate side has reported out a bill where the chairman is a little lukewarm about his own legislation, because of the spending increases it has. But there’s been no move to take that up on the floor. There’s been some 800 amendments submitted, a lot of talk about what to do, but they haven’t brought it up on the Senate floor. Not clear if they’ll do that in September. But that’s the next chance. And maybe they’ll just wait for off the floor negotiations to really bring that over the line. But that’s one of those pieces of legislation likely to move and also a good vehicle for other things that people might want to get done.
Tom Temin And President Biden’s proposals on the Supreme Court, no chance of that becoming any sort of legislation language in the foreseeable future, sounds like.
Loren Duggan No, and with the Republicans in control of the House and Speaker [Mike] Johnson (R-La.) very not receptive to that proposal, it’s unlikely to move anywhere. I don’t even know if the Democrats will try to turn that into legislation in the Senate, but they don’t have a lot of time to do much of what they have to do. And that would be even some ways beyond the scope of what they’re probably going to try to get done in September, I’d say at least.
Tom Temin And there were some other issues before they left. I mean, there was the whole artificial intelligence and the social media questions with respect to regulation and access to bad material being sent to children and so on. What about all that?
Loren Duggan So you’re right, the Senate, one of its acts last week was to pass something called [the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA)] and [the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)]. There are two online children’s safety bills that were packaged together in one thing. Passed with only three no votes. So pretty bipartisan, Democrats and Republicans coming together. That’s heading to the House; not clear that they’ll take it up in that exact form. But I think there might be momentum on that piece of tech legislation because protecting children seems to be a unifier. Although there are free speech concerns on AI, there were a lot of individual proposals, including two committees — Senate Homeland and Senate Commerce — reported out a number of bills last week, smaller things. Now how that moves as one big package, we’ll have to see. But AI is something that even if they don’t get it done this year, they’re laying the groundwork for more work next year and beyond. That’s not going away as an issue.
Tom Temin And with the possibility of Donald Trump returning to the White House, the possibility, it brings up the topic of that Schedule F for about 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 federal career employees now and legislation killing that forever has never quite gotten off the ground and probably can’t with the Republican House. Any possibility that could end up in the NDAA?
Loren Duggan I think that’s difficult just for the dynamic you said. Republicans control one half of the negotiations there with control of the House; Speaker Johnson I don’t think would allow that to move forward. Because I think there is agreement on Republicans to change the civil service. And that’s just the way they’ve looked at it. So that’s definitely something that’s in the back of people’s mind. That was part of the Project 2025, about how to change government and the Trump administration already had Schedule F, as you noted, at the end of their first term. If they had a second term, I think they’d follow through on that.
Tom Temin And that five week break. I mean, that sounds like a lot to most working people with lack of historical perspective that legislatures weren’t supposed to be these round-the-clock, round-the-calendar types of operations at the founding of the country. But is there anything on the horizon that could call for emergency return between now and September?
Loren Duggan I don’t see anything today but a hurricane or a major event could change that. They will be dealing probably with disaster aid in the fall because of what’s happened so far this year. They’re usually keep this one as tight as they can because of trips and family vacations and congressional delegations abroad and elsewhere. So I think we probably won’t see them until September 9, like they’ve said, but there’s always the opportunity to come back if they need to.
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Tom Temin
Tom Temin is host of the Federal Drive and has been providing insight on federal technology and management issues for more than 30 years.
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