Newly elected lawmakers spent the early part of this week flocking to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., this week for new member orientation, a flurry of activity that one new member of Congress pointed out is “kind of like school.”
“You got a week, got Thanksgiving break, then you got another week,” Rep.-elect Maxwell Frost, a Florida Democrat who will become the youngest member of Congress at just 25 years old, told Roll Call.
Though the full results of last week’s midterms have yet to be fully counted, Republicans appeared to be on track to capture slim House majority. Democrats, meanwhile, won the Senate majority for another term, even before Georgia’s Dec. 6 runoff.
The process can be a whirlwind: Lawmakers spend time in orientation sessions, figure out how to hire staff, set up offices and find places to live, and pick the leaders of each party for the next Congress.
Pennsylvania Sen.-elect John Fetterman even ditched his trademark look — a Carhartt hoodie and shorts — for a suit and tie for Tuesday’s orientation.
But despite the flurry of activity ahead of the 118th Congress, the 117th Congress still has work left to do in its “lame duck” session — including addressing the debt limit, government funding, same-sex marriage and Electoral Count Act reform.
“We are going to try to have as productive a lame-duck session as possible,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said to reporters on Sunday, noting that colleagues can expect “long hours” and “heavy work.”
No small feat for a narrowly divided Congress — especially in its waning days — but lawmakers have defied these odds several times before in the last two years, and hope to do so one last time before January.
Debt limit, government funding and defense spending
Arguably the most imminent priority for lawmakers to address is funding to keep the government running past Dec. 16, after passing a short-term funding measure in September that kicked the can down the road until after the midterms.
Lawmakers can either come together on an omnibus spending agreement for the next fiscal year, or pass yet another short-term measure, known as a continuing resolution, which will set up yet another funding battle down the road.
Also potentially on the docket, but somewhat less urgent, is action to address the debt limit. Lawmakers took action late last year to raise the debt limit, increasing the nation’s borrowing limit while ensuring that the country does not default on its obligations.
It’s not clear when the country will approach the debt ceiling, but it’s estimated to be at some point next year. But with the increasing likelihood of different parties controlling the House and Senate next year, negotiatiors may want to use the lame duck session as an opportunity to agree on a longer-term spending bill and address the debt limit.
“I think it would be very important for us to do so,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, said on ABC’s “This Week,” noting that Republicans have previously they would use the debt limit as leverage to try and make cuts to Biden administration priorities and other federal programs.
“It’s important to note that what the Republicans have said is they’re going to use the vote on the debt limit as leverage to cut Medicare and Social Security,” Pelosi said, adding: “Our best shot I think is to do it now.”
A number of lawmakers have called for the abolition of the debt limit, with House Democrats sending a letter asking Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer to “permanently undo the debt limit” in the lame duck session. President Biden has expressed opposition to that, calling it “irresponsible,” despite the fact that his own Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last year that “it’s become increasingly damaging to America to have a debt ceiling.”
Lawmakers have also discussed addressing the debt limit using reconciliation, the Senate procedure by which budgetary bills can pass with a simple majority rather than the 60-vote filibuster threshold. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said that he has spoken about that option with Leader Schumer and others.
“We need to think about how much time it takes and when it will be done,” Durbin told reporters Tuesday, adding: “I’m hopeful we can do something by the end of this year.”
Also on lawmakers’ plates is the National Defense Authorization Act, the annual defense spending bill that has passed Congress every year for the last six decades. The bill typically enjoys widespread support from both parties, but it’s yet other massive spending bill that lawmakers will rush to address before the year comes to an end.
Same-sex marriage
On the Senate floor on Monday, Majority Leader Schumer reiterated that lawmakers will hold a vote on a bill that will enshrine same-sex marriage protections into federal law “so that no American is discriminated against because of whom they love.”
Later that day, a bipartisan group of Senate lawmakers announced that they reached an agreement on an amendment that they believed will help carry the bill over the finish line.
On Monday, Republican Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Susan Collins, R-Maine and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., joined Democratic Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., to announce an amendment that “fully respects and protects Americans’ religious liberties and diverse beliefs, while leaving intact the core mission of the legislation to protect marriage equality.”
The bipartisan group of senators called the legislation a “narrow but important bill” whose primary goal is two-pronged; first, to require the federal government to recognize marriages by law should they be legal in the state in which they were performed, and to “guarantee that valid marriages between two individuals are given full faith and credit, regardless of the couple’s sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin.”
The bill does not, however, require states to change their laws in order to issue marriage licenses. It also ensures that religious non-profits will not be required to facilitate marriages that go against their beliefs, and further makes clear “that the bill does not require or authorize the federal government to recognize polygamous marriages.”
Senators added clarifying language that would prevent the bill “from being used to diminish or repeal” any religious liberty provisions awarded in the Constitution or under federal law, and states that an organization’s tax-exempt status may not be altered under the bill, provided that status “does not arise from a marriage.”
“For instance, a church, university, or other nonprofit’s eligibility for tax-exempt status is unrelated to marriage, so its status would not be affected by this legislation,” lawmakers wrote.
The bipartisan group of senators wrote that they were “confident” that the amendment will help garner “the broad, bipartisan support needed to pass our commonsense legislation into law.”
The bill originally passed the House earlier this year in a 267-157 vote, with 47 Republicans joining all present Democrats to pass the measure. It was introduced in response to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion to the ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade over the summer, in which he suggests the court should “reconsider” a number of other key rulings, including landmark decisions that granted a right to contraception and same-sex marriage.
Schumer cited the ruling and concurring opinion on Monday, saying that “the Senate has a responsibility now to act” on this legislation.
It’s unclear if the measure has enough GOP support to pass the evenly divided Senate. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney told reporters Tuesday that he will back the bill if it includes protections for religious institutions.
Electoral Count Act reform
Lawmakers are set to take up reforms to the Electoral Count Act of 1887, an arcane law that attempts to clarify how elections are administered, which former President Donald Trump and his allies sought to exploit in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers over the summer introduced legislation which would clarify ambiguous language in the law, establish the vice president’s largely ceremonial role in vote counting, raise the threshold for objections to election results and promote the orderly transfer of power.
It would be the first major electoral reform since the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, which saw a mob of Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
The Electoral Count Reform Act would, importantly, clarify that the role of the vice president in the electoral count is “solely ministerial” and clarifies that they don’t “have any power to solely determine, accept, reject, or otherwise adjudicate disputes over electors.”
The bill would also dramatically raise the threshold for the number of members of Congress needed to object to a state’s election results — to at least one-fifth of members of both the House and Senate — in order to “reduce the likelihood of frivolous objections by ensuring that objections are broadly supported.” Currently, it just takes one member of each chamber to object to a state’s slate of electors.
The measure would also specify that a state can only appoint one slate of electors that must be submitted by the state’s governor, or another official specified in the state’s laws or constitution. It would also provide for expedited judicial review process for raising questions for a state’s elections and protects each state’s popular vote by striking down a provision of an 1845 law that could allow state legislatures to declare a “failed election” and override the vote.
The Presidential Transition Improvement Act would clarify when presidential candidates can obtain transition resources when an election is contested.
The bill cleared a major procedural hurdle in September when it easily passed the Senate rules committee, setting it up for a vote in the Senate. The reforms carry the backing of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., signaling that it will have enough support to pass the chamber.
