Congress returns on Monday for the lame duck session between the November 3 midterms and the seating of the new Congress on January 3, with Republicans still holding both chambers and Democrats set to take control of each in January. The session runs about five weeks, and its one immovable date is December 11, when the stopgap spending law passed in September expires. If lawmakers do not pass another funding bill by then, parts of the federal government shut down.
The realistic options are narrow. Most spending bills need 60 votes in the Senate, where Republicans hold 53 seats, so any package needs Democratic votes even while Republicans still run the chamber. The expected path is another stopgap extending funding into next year, when Democrats will lead the negotiations with President Trump, rather than full year bills: as of the election, the House had passed only three of the 12 regular spending bills and the Senate none.
The rest of the queue is the unfinished business of the 119th Congress: the annual National Defense Authorization Act, still being reconciled between House and Senate versions, a farm bill that Senate Agriculture Chairman John Boozman said he hoped to settle in the next few weeks, and permitting and college sports measures Republican leaders would like to move before they lose the floor. Senate Republicans are also expected to spend much of the session confirming Trump’s judicial and executive nominees, a priority Democrats are unlikely to continue once they hold the majority, though Senator Kevin Cramer continues to block all nominees in a dispute over a Biden era Fish and Wildlife rule.
The leadership map is being redrawn in the same weeks. House Republicans will vote behind closed doors on who leads them in the minority after Speaker Mike Johnson announced he will not seek to remain at the helm, setting up a race between Republican Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan. In the Senate, several Republicans have called for delaying the leadership election scheduled this week, while Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer and John Thune are all expected to remain in charge of their conferences.
Trump has threatened to veto legislation that does not align with his agenda, and Democrats, holding the leverage of their incoming majorities, are not expected to cooperate beyond what the deadlines force. The first real test is the shape of the funding bill in the coming days: a short stopgap into January concedes the argument to the new Congress, while a longer one would set spending terms Democrats did not choose.