SNO Public Policy

Congressional State of Play

Lawmakers across Capitol Hill departed for the month-long August recess on July 27th, a day earlier than initially planned, after conceding that they were unlikely to make further progress on a number of must-pass priorities that had stalled out just prior to the annual summer break. The primary obstacle remains the House Freedom Caucus, the same group of insurgent Republicans that turned the approaching national debt ceiling into a debt limit crisis earlier this summer. This time around the faction of hardline fiscal conservatives’ ire was turned towards the appropriations process – stalling floor consideration of the agriculture measure and preventing the Labor-Health and Human Services-Education spending bill from advancing through the full committee. The struggle between House leadership and the more conservative wing of their party was also on display during the debate over the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which was able to pass narrowly on a near party-line vote after being filled with numerous divisive ‘culture war’ provisions that essentially make the usually bipartisan bill a non-starter for the Senate.