Senate Republicans are hoping to use the few legislative days left before the midterm elections to demonstrate progress on a handful of elusive priorities, one of which has been stalled by Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) extended absence from Washington.
Most of what gets accomplished for the remainder of this Congress is expected to take place in the lame-duck session, a brief period after the Nov. 3 election. And the only looming crisis before that date has already been addressed. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed a bill keeping the government open until mid-December.
For that reason, it’s unlikely the Senate will make much legislative headway when it returns Monday from a monthlong recess, and it may not even stay the full three weeks it is scheduled to be in session.
“Senate Republicans are fully prepared to stay the full three weeks, but it will depend on Democrats’ willingness to engage,” said one senior GOP aide.
Still, there are multiple bills on the Senate’s docket, and at least one of them — college sports legislation — stands a reasonable chance of passing. Senators are also expected to vote on Keith Sonderling’s nomination as labor secretary and multiple judicial appointments.
What appears to be out of reach is a deal on cryptocurrency legislation. Members of the Banking Committee have worked for months to reach a consensus on the CLARITY Act, with lead GOP negotiator, Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), releasing new text as recently as Thursday.
But the Tuesday vote is expected to fail due to a hang-up over Trump’s investments in cryptocurrency and Democratic demands that there be guardrails to prevent him and other government officials from profiting off the industry.
It remains to be seen whether a deal on permitting reform will materialize or whether it, too, will succumb to partisan gridlock.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) expressed hope last week that Democratic interest in streamlining green energy projects would lead to an agreement. Yet it was punted as a priority before the August recess, and any compromise would require Democrats to trust that the Trump administration will scale back its hostility to solar and wind projects.
Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-UT) insistence on federal land reforms as part of the legislation has also been a holdup for Democrats. Lee runs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, one of two panels with jurisdiction over permitting reform.
“The Chairman continues to negotiate in good faith with his colleagues and remains optimistic that an agreement to fix America’s broken permitting system is within reach,” a Lee spokesperson told the Washington Examiner.
The college sports bill, drafted to set one national standard for athlete compensation and provide antitrust liability for the National Collegiate Athletic Association, is the most promising legislation senators will consider when they return. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), its lead Republican sponsor, has projected confidence it will attract the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
If McConnell returns to the Senate, Republicans on the Agriculture Committee could also move ahead with a farm bill that stalled out last month due to his hospitalization and subsequent recovery from a June fall.
The legislation was blocked by Democrats and is unlikely to pass the full Senate without a deal to delay changes to the food stamps program, but McConnell’s return would allow Chairman John Boozman (R-AR) to advance it out of committee in a party-line vote.
A spokesman for McConnell, who is retiring at the end of the year, offered no new guidance on whether he would return. His Kentucky colleague, Rep. James Comer (R-KY), expressed hope that McConnell would be back next week based on conversations with his staff.
The votes will take place alongside a brief return for House lawmakers. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has already cut their calendar short by two weeks, but has teed up a Senate-passed Russia sanctions bill for this week and will also bring to the floor legislation to address the impact of data centers on local electricity costs.
The sanctions bill is at risk of failing due to House Democratic opposition to its tariff provisions, but it’s a major priority for senators following the death of its lead GOP sponsor, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and easily cleared the upper chamber in August.
The abbreviated House and Senate schedule — lawmakers are expected to be gone for the month of October — means there is likely to be a flurry of activity on Capitol Hill after the midterm elections, which will decide whether Republicans keep unified control of Washington.
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The to-do list includes another bill keeping the government running past Dec. 11, as well as Congress’s annual defense policy bill and a foreign surveillance program lawmakers failed to renew in June.
Republicans will also have to grapple with whether to pursue another party-line budget bill to fund the war in Iran and pass elements of the SAVE America Act, a Trump-backed voter ID bill.