Congress races to avert shutdown ahead of looming deadline
Editor's note: This report has been updated to clarify the proposed additional Secret Service funding.
The House and Senate are racing to complete the government funding process with the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline looming and lawmakers eager to head back to their districts to campaign ahead of the November elections.
Congressional leaders unveiled a largely "clean" three-month stopgap over the weekend, which would keep the government funded at current levels through Dec. 20 and provide the Secret Service with $231 million in additional dollars after the pair of assassination attempts against former President Trump. House Republican aides said the chamber hopes to vote on the legislation by Wednesday.
The stopgap — despite its bipartisan and bicameral backing — is sure to anger hardline House conservatives, who were pushing for a shorter continuing resolution, and Trump, who advocated for including a bill that would require proof of citizenship to vote. That opposition could spell trouble for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as he tries to advance the legislation through regular order.
Aside from government funding, the House task force on the attempted assassination of Trump is set to hold its first hearing on Wednesday, focusing on the Secret Service's utilization of state and local law enforcement at Trump's rally in Butler, Pa. Also in the House, Former NFL quarterback Brett Favre is expected to testify before the Ways and Means Committee for a hearing about the misuse of welfare funds. And a statue of American musician Johnny Cash will also be unveiled.
In the Senate, hearings will take place on the Supreme Court's presidential immunity decision, the price of Novo Nordisk's semaglutide products Ozempic and Wegovy, and women's health care.
House, Senate sprint to fund the government
The final legislative sprint before the November elections is set to kick off on Monday, when the House begins the process for considering leadership's three-month stopgap. House Republican aides said they aim to consider the stopgap by Wednesday, after which it would head to the Senate for a vote.
Top congressional leaders quickly endorsed the product after its release on Sunday.
"If both sides continue to work in good faith, I am hopeful that we can wrap up work on the CR this week, well before the September 30 deadline," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement Sunday. "The key to finishing our work this week will be bipartisan cooperation, in both chambers."
The release of the three-month continuing resolution comes after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) tried — but failed — last week to pass a six-month stopgap paired with a Trump-backed bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote, dubbed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. A group of Republicans joined with Democrats to tank the effort , sending the spending process back to square one.
Notably, the continuing resolution unveiled on Sunday adopts a shorter time frame and omits the SAVE Act, two details that are sure to anger hardline House conservatives and Trump. The former president urged Republicans to vote against any continuing resolution unless it included "every ounce" of the SAVE Act.
While the stopgap will have bipartisan support in both chambers — leaders in both parties and chambers endorsed the package — the opposition among hardline House Republicans could mean trouble for Johnson later this week when he looks to advance the legislation through regular order.
Because House GOP leadership aims to consider the measure through regular order, the chamber must pass a procedural rule to begin debate on the legislation. Rule votes are typically mundane, party-line occurrences in which the majority party votes in support and members of the minority party oppose. Throughout this Congress, however, hardline House conservatives have opposed procedural rules in protest to the underlying legislation, an act that, if large enough, could block the measure from advancing to the floor.
Republicans can only afford to lose four members on any party-line votes because of their razor-thin majority.
It is unclear if hardline conservatives will vote against the rule to block the legislation from consideration. In a letter to colleagues on Sunday, Johnson sought to explain his decision to put the "clean" short-term stopgap on the floor.
"As you all know, we presented a plan last week for a six-month CR accompanied by the SAVE Act, so that we could both meet our funding obligations and do all within our power to ensure election security. Due to the urgency of that issue, the American people deserve nothing less. Since we fell a bit short of the goal line, an alternative plan is now required," Johnson said.
Trump assassination attempt task force to hold first hearing
The task force investigating the assassination attempts against Trump will hold its first hearing on Thursday, zeroing in on the Secret Service's use of state and local law enforcement in its protection of the former president at his rally in Butler, Pa.
The hearing — scheduled for Thursday at 9:30 a.m. — is the task force's first presentation since it was established by a unanimous House vote in July. The group has not said who, if anyone, will appear before the panel as a witness.
The hearing comes more than two months after a gunman — Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, who was killed amid the incident — opened fire at Trump's Pennsylvania rally, grazing his ear with a bullet and leaving him bloodied. One attendee was killed at the rally, and others were wounded.
On Friday, the House unanimously approved expanding the task force to include the Sept. 15 assassination attempt against Trump at his golf course. The former president was playing at the Trump International Golf Club in Florida when a security team spotted a gunman — later identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58 — hiding among trees and sticking a rifle through the fence of the course. The security team, which was conducting a screening of the holes Trump was approaching, fired shots at Routh, who fled the scene and was later arrested by local authorities.
The task force has already requested documents from and interviews with the Secret Service, local law enforcement — including those in Butler, Pa. — and Crooks' immediate family. Last week, the House unanimously passed a bill that would require the Secret Service to "apply the same standards" to determine how many agents should be utilized to protect the president, vice president, and major presidential and vice presidential candidates.
The task force is expected to produce its final report by Dec. 13.
Brett Favre testifies in House; Johnny Cash statue to be unveiled
Former NFL quarterback Brett Favre is scheduled to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee this week as part of a hearing focused on the misuse of welfare funds, ESPN has reported.
The hearing — scheduled for Tuesday at 10:15 a.m. — is titled "Reforming Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF): States' Misuse of Welfare Funds Leaves Poor Families Behind."
Favre, who played in the NFL for 20 seasons, is one of several defendants in a civil lawsuit related to the Mississippi welfare case involving millions of dollars in TANF money that was misused by wealthy individuals, according to ESPN, citing a state audit. The civil lawsuit is aimed at regaining the money that was improperly used. Favre has not been criminally charged in the case and has said he did not engage in any wrongdoing.
Also in the House this week, leaders are scheduled to unveil a statue of American singer and songwriter Johnny Cash. The musician's statue will be Arkansas's second in the Capitol, according to the Speaker's office.
Johnson, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the Arkansas Congressional delegation, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) and members of the Cash family are slated to attend a statute dedication ceremony on Tuesday at 11 a.m.
Senate hearings on presidential immunity, semaglutide products, women's health care
A trio of notable hearings are slated to take place in the Senate on Tuesday this week — the final days that lawmakers are scheduled to be in Washington before Election Day.
On Tuesday at 10 a.m., the Senate Judiciary Committee is slated to hold a hearing on the Supreme Court's "unprecedented" decision on presidential immunity, which determined that core presidential powers are immune from criminal prosecution. The ruling, which came down in July, marked a win for Trump, sending the federal case involving his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election back to a lower court.
The witnesses scheduled to come before the panel include Philip Allen Lacovara, former U.S. deputy solicitor general and former counsel to the Watergate special prosecutor; Mary B. McCord, executive director of Georgetown University's Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection; Timothy Naftali, senior research scholar at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs; former Attorney General and U.S. District Judge Michael B. Mukasey; and Jennifer Mascott, director of the Separation of Powers Institute and associate professor of law at Catholic University's Columbus School of Law.
Also, on Tuesday at 10 a.m., the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) is set to hold a hearing on healthcare company Novo Nordisk and the sale of the semaglutide products Ozempic and Wegovy, which are more expensive in the U.S. than abroad.
Novo Nordisk President and CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen is scheduled to testify before the panel. In a statement last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the chairman of the HELP Committee, said "There is no rational reason, other than greed" for Novo Nordisk to charge the amount it does for Ozempic.
"If Novo Nordisk does not end its greed and substantially reduce the price of these drugs, we must do everything we can to end it for them," he added.
And finally, at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee is slated to host a hearing on women's health care titled: "Chaos and Control: How Trump Criminalized Women's Health Care."
