By David Morgan
WASHINGTON, July 21 (Reuters) – The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to move forward on major legislation including a $1.15-trillion defense policy bill, a stopgap measure to fund federal agencies through the November midterm elections and a $95-billion budget blueprint to fund a range of President Donald Trump’s priorities including the Iran war and his partisan voter ID bill.
In a 214-211 vote roughly along party lines, lawmakers opened debate on the House’s final agenda before leaving Washington on Thursday for a five-week August break that will be dominated by campaign events, as Republicans and Democrats vie for control of Congress in the final two years of Trump’s presidency.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he hopes to consider a Senate CR before his chamber leaves town for its own break on August 6. But he said that would depend on negotiations with Democrats.
Lawmakers are expected to vote on the defense policy bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act, the budget resolution and a bill to ban stock trading by members of Congress on Wednesday. If passed, all three would head to the Senate with portions of Trump’s voter ID bill, the SAVE America Act, attached.
Thune told reporters that if the House passes the budget resolution, the Senate could hold it until September as a possible funding vehicle to avert a government shutdown should Congress prove unable to agree on a bipartisan stopgap measure.
Meanwhile, Johnson has already cleared a path for the NDAA to pass with Republican votes by arranging to merge it with Trump’s SAVE America Act after House adoption. Republicans have also attached a SAVE America Act provision requiring voters to show photo IDs to the stock-trading bill.
The budget resolution, which has been championed by Trump, has drawn criticism from multiple factions including fiscal hawks who want the funding it would authorize offset by spending cuts elsewhere and defense hawks who complain that its $73 billion outlay for defense and intelligence falls short of Trump’s call for $350 billion over a decade.
Trump weighed in on the budget resolution debate on Monday, declaring in a social media post: “I am asking all House Republicans to VOTE YES this week on the Budget Resolution, which is an important first step towards getting a Budget Bill. House Republicans must UNIFY, and fight for THE SAVE AMERICA ACT!”
The House and the Senate would need to pass the budget resolution to unlock a parliamentary tool called budget reconciliation, which would ease the Republican path to enacting a separate bill containing $60 billion for defense, $13 billion for intelligence, $12 billion for farm aid and $10 billion for voter ID restrictions including proof of citizenship for people registering to vote over a decade.
The legislative track would enable Republicans to circumvent Democratic opposition in the Senate, where most legislation requires a 60-vote supermajority to pass, and instead pass the bill with a simple majority. Republicans have only a 53-47 seat Senate majority, and Democrats vehemently oppose the resolution.
(Reporting by David Morgan; additional reporting by David Ljunggren and Susan Heavey; Editing by Michael Learmonth and Alistair Bell)
