House lawmakers will be returning to Capitol Hill this week with a full docket as GOP leadership tees up floor votes on a wide range of legislation, buying time for Republicans to hammer out the finer details of President Donald Trump‘s signature tax cut-and-border bill.
Republican leadership has ambitious goals for the month of May. Lawmakers, who are returning from a two-week Easter recess, will not see another break until the end of the month for the Memorial Day recess. There are 16 session days on the House calendar, with three Fridays and one Monday set as recess days, for now.
During those 16 days, Republicans will be charging forward with a budget process that unlocks Trump’s agenda called reconciliation. Through one megabill, the GOP hopes to pass a renewal of his 2017 tax law alongside priorities on energy, defense, and the border.
Committees will hold markups, a series of hearings to sign off on the legislation, with the House Energy and Commerce markup expected to draw heated debate over Medicaid. House Republicans are promising welfare benefits will not be cut as part of $1.5 trillion in spending offsets demanded by fiscal hawks, but some changes could prove controversial with GOP centrists.
At the same time, Republicans will pursue symbolic floor votes that are sure to please Trump, including legislation renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and a bill giving current and former presidents more legal flexibility when they are prosecuted.
GOP keeps busy on the House floor
While reconciliation remains at the top of Republicans’ minds, House leaders are hoping to move other bills across the floor, starting with a handful of resolutions that target California.
Next week, lawmakers will vote on measures that would, among other things, roll back California’s push for zero-emission trucks and overturn an Environmental Protection Agency decision allowing the state to tighten engine emission standards.
Each will be approved for a floor vote by the Rules Committee on Monday evening.
During the week of May 5, the House will take up the White House’s $9.3 billion rescissions package, according to Punchbowl News. The rescissions, which codify cuts that Trump has already pursued, would claw back $1.1 billion from the Public Broadcasting Service and $8.3 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The legislation can pass with a simple majority vote, meaning Republicans can sidestep the filibuster in the Senate. Getting it to the upper chamber may be a challenge, however, given that Johnson only has a three-vote margin in the House and may face reservations from centrists.
Lawmakers will also vote on a bill formally renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, a change Trump already made via executive order at the beginning of his second term. The renaming notoriously sparked a battle with the Associated Press, which declined to adhere to the change in its stories. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), a vocal Trump ally, is co-sponsoring the legislation.
Rep. Russell Fry’s (R-SC) bill granting current and former presidents the ability to move their state cases to federal court is also scheduled for a vote that week.
The following week is scheduled to focus on support for law enforcement, lining up with National Police Week. Three bills are on the docket, per Punchbowl News, including bipartisan legislation to require the attorney general to collect and make public data about attacks on police officers.
House sprints forward on megabill
In the background, several committees are preparing hearings on the various aspects of Trump’s agenda under their jurisdiction, with his flagship legislation given a working title: the “Renewing the American Dream Act.” Panels with more straightforward policy oversight will hold their markups first, including a Tuesday hearing on the Armed Services Committee. The more thorny legislative text will be brought forward later, with the Energy and Commerce Committee planning a markup for May 7.
The goal is to get the bill to Trump’s desk by Memorial Day, but that timeline is viewed as too ambitious given the weeks it will then take to get through the Senate.
The Armed Services Committee plans to propose a $150 billion increase in defense spending, which is $50 billion more than the House’s original target of $100 billion. The new number matches the Senate’s goal and is a win for defense hawks who want to see Congress and the White House maximize military spending while Republicans hold unified control of Washington.
The decision to plus-up defense could face some pushback from fiscal hawks, however. The Freedom Caucus has previously demanded offsets to any new spending as part of the budget process.
Earlier this month, fiscal conservatives wanting to rein in spending only voted for a blueprint on Trump’s agenda because Senate and House leaders made concrete promises on paper. It was reported that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told hard-line members to oust him from the speakership if he reneges on his promises, but one House Republican intimately involved in the budget conversations told the Washington Examiner that was “false.”
On the Medicaid front, Republicans are generally supportive of work requirements for the welfare program and may be able to recoup further savings by mandating more regular checks on eligibility. But any changes that shift the cost burden onto states or otherwise threaten benefits would likely be rejected by GOP centrists.
Republicans face home district pressure over recess
Trump has made it clear that reconciliation is a top priority, urging Republicans to pass his “one big beautiful bill” as quickly as possible. That plea is partially due to the predictability Republicans want to give the business community as elements of his tax law expire, but the market turmoil stemming from the president’s tariffs has added to the sense of urgency.
Over the recess, Democrats hosted events emphasizing the turmoil alongside warnings of Medicaid cuts under the bill, while a smaller number of Republicans held town halls where they heard from constituents worried about the aggressive federal job-slashing under Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and the impact tariffs are having on their retirement accounts.
HOUSE GOP EYES MAY VOTE ON TRUMP AGENDA IN TEST OF FISCAL HAWK LOYALTY
Democratic-aligned groups also blanketed the airwaves in the home districts of vulnerable House Republicans on the issue of Medicaid.
Republicans are defending 29 competitive seats in the midterm elections next year to Democrats’ 39, giving the GOP a slight advantage. But Democrats are hoping their messaging can help flip control of the chamber.