Congress is cutting it close, as usual
With days until government funding expires, Hill leaders have yet to even release the text of an agreement as last-minute negotiations drag on. Plus: The latest on the drone sightings.
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👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Welcome back to Once Upon a Hill. We’ve arrived at the final week of session and Congress has until Friday night to pass a short-term funding extension—known as a continuing resolution (CR)—to keep the government open. The farm bill must also be extended since lawmakers failed for the second year in a row to pass an updated version of the agriculture and food policy measure. Additionally, billions of dollars in disaster aid are hanging in the balance as communities across the country continue to rebuild after extreme weather events.
This week is the final week Democrats will have any federal power for at least the next two years. Republicans are set to retake the White House and Senate next month, providing a backstop for what amounts to a nonexistent House GOP majority through next spring. There’s a lot of haggling as Democrats work at the last minute to notch as many legislative priorities in the CR as they still have some say-so.
Working in their favor: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has already lost too many votes from his conservative flank to pass the CR under a rule with a simple majority. Instead, the CR will likely come to the floor under suspension of the rules, which will require Democrats to provide a hefty sum of the two-thirds vote required for final passage. We’ve been here before so you know by now that the more Democratic votes House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) puts on the board, the more concessions he’ll hope to milk from Johnson.
The high-stakes haggling has resulted in the delayed release of the CR text, which usually hits our inboxes the Sunday before the shutdown deadline. It’s expected to drop any day now and enough members are expected to support the bill regardless of what’s in it to prevent a shutdown. But again, the fact that negotiations are still ongoing at this stage is notable.
The CR will likely extend government funding into mid-March, adding old business on top of the Republicans’ ambitious agenda of passing a party-line border and energy bill and solving the quagmire of extending President-elect Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts without exploding a $4-trillion canyon in the national deficit. (The Senate will also have to confirm Trump’s cabinet.) Republicans claim they can walk and chew gum as if we didn’t watch the House GOP repeatedly struggle for two years to often even remove its gum from the wrapper without help from the other side.
So even though Congress will avoid a government shutdown this week, we’ll learn early in 2025 if Republicans have once again bitten off more than they can actually chew.
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas to encourage the Department of Homeland Security to deploy the Robin—a special 360-degree drone-detection technology—amid continued drone sightings over New York and New Jersey to discover where the drones take off and land from.
The top Senate Democrat said he would also cosponsor legislation that explicitly authorizes state and local law enforcement to work with the DHS and the Justice Department (DOJ) to conduct detection operations using equipment like the Robin to locate the source of drone threats. The bill would also create a program where DHS and DOJ designate a dozen state and local agencies each year to receive special training to allow them to detect and bring down drones that threaten critical facilities or mass gatherings like sporting events.
“Currently, local officials are trying to find answers to this serious problem with their hands tied behind their backs. If the federal government has the technology to address the epidemic of non-stop drone sightings, we should do everything we can to help,” Schumer wrote in his letter. “What we need right now is data. The briefings I have had tell me there is no evidence that this is a government or foreign activity, and so, we have to answer the logical of question of: who? In these recent sightings, you have a vast array of variables, and we need to lock in on the broadest one: location.”
In most areas, flying drones is legal for operators who remain below 400 feet, keep the drones in sight, avoid other aircraft, and adhere to local regulations. (Additional permissions are required for commercial activities like videography.)
The Federal Aviation Administration implemented temporary flight restrictions in Morris County, New Jersey, due to reported drone activity. These restrictions will expire in late December but may be extended.
An FBI official told reporters on Saturday that the agency found no evidence of large-scale unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) while confirming that some drones are operating legally within New Jersey’s airspace. The official acknowledged that while most reported UAS sightings originated from the ground, manned aircraft may have been mistaken for drones.
An official from the Department of Homeland Security said the agency is using geospatial modeling to help distinguish between actual drones and misidentified manned aircraft. The agency has also deployed advanced drone-specific radar and camera systems to aid in detection but found no evidence of a threat to public safety. The official called on Congress to pass legislation that would enhance counter-drone capabilities for federal, state and local authorities to better address potential threats.
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ICYMI: Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) successfully underwent hip replacement surgery on Saturday following a fall while in Germany as part of a congressional delegation to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. Pelosi was among several members with loved ones who fought in World War II.
The accident is a reminder of how fragile House margins will be next Congress with health scares, off-year election campaigns and family emergencies pulling members away from Washington and giving either side an attendance advantage on any given voting day.
House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar told reporters earlier this month that attendance would be critical to resisting Republican overreach during Trump 2.0.
“Life happens. Emergencies happen. We absolutely get it. But there are things that we can control as members—appointments and things on the personal side and we need to look at the House calendar when we when we do those.”
Do you have questions about the lame-duck session or the incoming Trump presidency? Drop me a line at michael@onceuponahill.com or send me a message below to get in touch and I’ll report back with answers.
Happenings
The House will meet at 12 p.m. with first and last votes expected at 6:30 p.m.
The House Rules Committee will meet at 4 p.m. to prepare the Midnight Rules Relief Act—a bill that would amend the Congressional Review Act to enable Congress to disapprove multiple federal agency rules issued in the final year of a president’s term through a single joint resolution—for floor consideration.
The Senate will meet at 3 p.m. and vote at 5:30 p.m. on a procedural motion to advance the National Defense Authorization Act.
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