House GOP’s two-week ‘ready to go’ legislative itinerary stalls amid strife
Ryan King
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Shortly before Republicans climbed back to power in the House, Majority Leader-elect Steve Scalise (R-LA) outlined 11 bills to be voted on within two weeks.
Nearly 100 days after the GOP reclaimed the lower chamber, only six of Scalise’s “ready to go” bills were passed, while the remaining five have either crashed and burned or not had a floor vote.
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“In less than 100 days … we have passed more bills, had more bills reach the president’s desk, and will have an equal number signed into law compared to last Congress,” a Scalise spokesperson told Politico. “This is especially notable since we did that with a Democratic Senate and White House, while last Congress they had total one-party control.”
Scalise released his plan on Dec. 30, 2022, as his party was mired in a nasty spat over the speaker’s gavel. Ultimately, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) narrowly managed to prevail after a historically rare redux of voting.
Legislation on the docket the House passed includes a bill to establish the bipartisan China committee, a resolution condemning attacks on anti-abortion groups, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, the Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act, the Protecting America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve from China Act, and the Strategic Production Response Act.
So far, none of those bills have cleared the Senate. Notably, the resolution to establish the House China committee didn’t need Senate approval.
Bills that haven’t made it on the runway feature the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act, a resolution condemning efforts to defund law enforcement, the Border Safety and Security Act, the Illegal Alien NICS Alert Act, and the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act.
Despite House Republicans struggling to push through that two-week agenda, they have managed to wrangle a bevy of other legislative wins. Since the takeover, Republicans have tapped into the Congressional Review Act to put the Biden administration on the spot.
They passed resolutions to overturn a Washington, D.C., crime law, to scrap a D.C. police reform bill, and to nix a Biden administration water rule. Those efforts have drawn mixed results, with President Joe Biden declining to veto the crime law overturn but vetoing the water rule rollback.
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Perhaps most significantly, Republican lawmakers pushed energy legislation through last month. Although dead on arrival in the Senate, the measure gave the GOP ammunition against the Democrats.
Lawmakers are set to head back to business next week following a two-week recess. They have an impending debt ceiling dispute to sort through and a host of other proposals they are set to take up.