Republicans appear unlikely to coalesce around a major legislative agenda ahead of the midterm elections, a dynamic underscored by a State of the Union speech this week that was light on congressional action items.
Congress always struggles to pass major bills in election years, and several factors make legislating more difficult for the GOP, which controls the House and Senate. One is the razor-thin majority in the House. Another is that President Donald Trump is not personally lobbying for ambitious legislation.
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“No. No, not much is going to get done,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told the Washington Examiner on Thursday when asked about how much Congress might be able to get done before the midterm elections.
Trump failed to lay out a clear or legislative blueprint for Republicans during his State of the Union address on Tuesday, beyond a few smaller-bore items.
While he mentioned voter ID legislation and the desire for a housing bill, he offered no direction to congressional Republicans on a larger legislative bill or for a tranche of election-year policy proposals.
“The State of the Union did not have many action items for Congress,” Brian Darling, a GOP strategist and former Senate aide, told the Washington Examiner.
Trump mentioned the SAVE America Act, which mandates voter ID and proof of citizenship to register to vote.
That legislation, though, has been blocked in the upper chamber by the threat of a Democratic filibuster. Republicans have debated procedural tactics to get around Democrats, such as by forcing them into a “talking filibuster.”
But such maneuvers would cut into floor time that could be used for other legislative priorities.
“I mean, there’s a lot of opportunity if we want to do it, but if we go around wasting, I don’t know, two, three weeks, on trying to accomplish a talking filibuster … I think we’re burning daylight; we’re burning legislative days and it makes it less likely we can do things that we can get bipartisan support done,” retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told the Washington Examiner.
Republicans could pass legislation through the budgetary process known as reconciliation, which allows for bills to be passed with only a simple majority in the Senate, as long as they mostly concern taxation and spending. The party used reconciliation to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — now branded the Working Families Tax Cut — which Trump signed into law over the summer.
Conservatives have called for using reconciliation to address some of voters’ biggest concerns, including cutting spending, increasing the housing supply, and reforming Obamacare.
But leadership has tempered expectations for another reconciliation bill, given the lack of consensus on its goals.
“I’d sure love to do one, but obviously, with a now one-seat majority, basically, it means we’ve all got to come together and agree on what that framework would look like,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) said back in January.
“There’s some things that didn’t make it through the Working Families Tax Cut that we’d like to go back to, but at the end of the day, you got to have the votes to pass it,” Scalise said.
Thune said that leadership has encouraged committees to come up with ideas that could possibly be in a reconciliation 2.0 bill, though he pointed out that the process isn’t that clear-cut this time around.
“There’s always the idea of doing some things in reconciliation, but you got to have 50 plus one [votes] to do anything in reconciliation too,” Thune told the Washington Examiner.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act was passed in large part because it included items Republicans had to pass, such as extending the Trump tax cuts for households, which were set to expire. It also enacted a whole tranche of 2024 election promises, such as Trump’s tax cuts on tips, overtime, and Social Security. It also provided funding to increase border security and build up the military.
The fact that it included nearly all of the Trump agenda in one piece of legislation — as reflected by the name The One Big beautiful Bill — gave Republicans motivation to pass it, but it also leaves them with little more to do this year.
“I think the American people are looking at Republicans, and they don’t see a specific agenda coming from Congress,” Darling said. “And that’s a problem, because in the midterms, Donald Trump’s not going to be in the ballot — it’s going to be these members of Congress in the ballot and what’s their reason to vote for Republicans?”
“There doesn’t seem to be an overriding issue that’s helping Republicans right now,” he said.
Instead of passing legislation on a partisan basis, Republicans could try to get Democratic help.
One legislative achievement that might be notched is the passage of bipartisan housing legislation. Both chambers have worked on legislation to increase the housing supply by easing restrictions on building, and the Senate is set to work on moving legislation forward soon.
That would be a win for Republicans and Democrats.
Trump himself has sounded conflicted about legislation to lower the cost of housing. In his State of the Union address, he called only for narrow legislation to prevent large investors from buying single-family homes.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) said it is getting more challenging to get much done legislatively as the year ticks closer to the midterm elections.
“Yeah, it’s getting tougher and tougher,” Lummis told the Washington Examiner. “I had hoped that we could get deeper into the year, and certainly into late spring, before things fell apart. But I don’t think that’s going to be the case. I think things are going to fall apart soon.”
Still, she said she is hopeful about housing legislation and about digital asset legislation.
“There’s still hope for a few things, but some of the more high-profile issues, some of which were raised, for example, in the State of the Union message, they’re going to be challenging,” Lummis said.
Meanwhile, the majority in the House is so slim that any disagreement on legislation from even just a couple of members could derail the entire effort — adding further challenges to legislating.
“The majority, Republican majority, in the House is so small that it wouldn’t qualify for HOV lanes in a lot of places,” Peter Loge, director of the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, told the Washington Examiner.
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Alex Conant, a GOP strategist and a partner at Firehouse Strategies, said that Trump and Republicans are going to focus more on the reconciliation bill that passed last year and continue to sell it to voters ahead of the midterm elections.
“I think especially as people start getting their refunds in the next few weeks, making sure that the Republicans get full credit for those is a big priority,” Conant said.