04.28.26 - How Republicans’ Agenda Got Stuck & How They Could Unstick It

House Republicans went into this week with a long to-do list. Among their agenda items: 

• Approve a long-elusive farm bill, which locks in cuts to food assistance that Republicans passed last summer. Those cuts have already taken food assistance from 2.5 million Americans in less than a year.  

• Extend government surveillance powers set to expire on Thursday—without requiring warrants to collect Americans’ protected data, despite bipartisan demands for privacy safeguards.  

• Reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by passing a bipartisan, Senate-approved funding bill that Speaker Johnson suggested the House would pass a month ago. While the Trump administration has siphoned money to keep DHS employees paid, that pot is expected to run out by May. 

• Kick off the reconciliation process to funnel billions more taxpayer dollars to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol. This would come just months after immigration agents killed Renée Good and Alex Pretti, and on top of last summer’s GOP budget law, which allocated an extra $170 billion for immigration enforcement—paid for by cuts to health care and food assistance. 

Right now, all of that is up in the air. I’ll explain why below. 

How Republicans’ Agenda Got Stuck

Folks who read this newsletter regularly will recall that before the House can vote on anything, it must approve a “rule” that sets parameters for debate (e.g., how long a bill’s supporters and opponents can talk, which amendments will get a vote, etc.). The House Rules Committee crafts and votes on that rule. 

So, before we can even think about whether the House will pass the rule that governs debate on a bill—let alone pass the bill itself—we have to think about whether the Rules Committee can approve a rule and send that to the full House for a vote. 

Theoretically, approving a rule should be easy for the party in the majority because the Rules Committee is stacked in their favor: Republicans have nine slots, Democrats have four. Republican divisions need to be pretty wide to jam up the Rules Committee. 

And yet, that’s where we are. Last night, the Rules Committee paused their meeting that was supposed to produce a rule governing debate on the bills above. Rather than reconvene this morning as planned, Republicans have scrapped the meeting altogether. 

Why Republicans’ Agenda Got Stuck 

For the purposes of this newsletter, we’ll focus on why reconciliation and, relatedly, DHS funding hit a snag. You can read more about the surveillance and farm bill hiccups here.

Again, Senate Majority Leader Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson said on April 1 that they’d deal with the DHS funding impasse via a two-track process. Both chambers would pass a bill funding all of DHS besides immigration enforcement—which the Senate has already done on a bipartisan basis—and then Republicans would use the party-line reconciliation process to fund ICE and Border Patrol. The Senate kicked off that process, too, last week. 

The problem is that House Republicans just don’t seem to like this plan. Some don’t want to vote for a DHS funding bill that excludes immigration enforcement, and some don’t want to use the onerous reconciliation process for just immigration enforcement. 

How Republicans Could Get Unstuck

Again, I’ll just focus on reconciliation and DHS here. Speaker Johnson is talking about passing a new DHS funding bill, rather than taking up the one the Senate approved a month ago. It’s not clear how that bill would change, but any changes will require the Senate to vote again. 

All of this prolongs the DHS shutdown. If, indeed, the pot DHS is using to pay personnel runs dry in a few days and workers start missing paychecks, we could see more chaos at airports—and perhaps worse crises as summer storms begin. 

On the immigration-focused reconciliation package, House Republicans could come up with a new budget blueprint to compete with the one Senate Republicans passed last week. Assuming that new plan could win House GOP approval—an open question given the chaos we’re witnessing—there will still need to be another Senate vote. President Trump told Republicans to send him this reconciliation bill by June 1. Even if Republicans bypass committee hearings, this is a tight turnaround that won’t be made easier by forcing the Senate to re-do its work. 

Another option is for Republicans to convince their Members that they’ll have another bite at reconciliation before November. GOP leaders could argue that Members can cram their unaddressed priorities into that package and, accordingly, let this reconciliation bill stay focused on immigration. 

But GOP Members will have reason to be skeptical: on average, reconciliation bills passed over the last 25 years have taken 179 days to become law after the budget resolution teeing them up passes. The midterms are 189 days away, and that window includes two months of recess in August and October—and, again, Republicans still haven’t passed a budget resolution in both chambers, meaning the clock hasn’t yet started.  

We’ll keep you posted as Republicans’ next steps become clear. And in case you missed it, check out our Visual Guide to Reconciliation, a cheat sheet on this convoluted process!

If you’d like a live update for your group or coalition, reach out to catherine@webuildprogress.org. Thanks!