House and Senate lawmakers are looking to wrap up legislative business this week so they can go home ahead of schedule and focus on the November elections, but their exit hinges on a deal that temporarily funds the government and the effort to fight the Zika virus.
Efforts to reach a spending bill are focused in the Senate, where Republican and Democratic leaders as well as White House officials are trading offers back and forth on a plan to fund the government until Dec. 9. The bill will also provide $1.1 billion for the federal government to combat the Zika virus, a mosquito transmitted disease the causes birth defects and is spreading in the southeastern region of the United States.
The Senate is scheduled to vote on a legislative vehicle for the package on Monday evening and lawmakers are hoping the vote will motivate the parties to strike a deal quickly.
But while the House is waiting for the Senate to act first, lawmakers there won’t be standing idly by. Republican leaders are planning so that if next week is all that’s left before full campaign mode, they get in a few shots against the Obama administration.
One of those shots is a bill to rebuke President Obama over his so-called “ransom” payment to Iran in January. The bill from House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., would ban all cash payments to Iran, “including dead-of-night ransom payments,” Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., announced Friday.
It would also require congressional review of all future U.S. settlements with Iran. The bill is a response to Obama’s recent disclosure that the United States delivered $400 million in cash to Iran before three Americans held in the country were allowed to leave.
Mid-week, the Judiciary Committee will consider articles of impeachment against embattled IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, who many Republicans have accused of mishandling evidence in an investigation of IRS agents targeting conservative groups.
Republican leaders, eager to avoid an impeachment vote, struck a deal with the conservative House Freedom Caucus to postpone the vote in exchange for the Judiciary hearing, which will feature Koskinen under oath on Wednesday. But a rogue, lame-duck conservative, Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., said he may call up the impeachment vote on the House floor despite the deal.
Huelskamp lost his primary this summer in part because GOP leaders forced him off the Agriculture committee, weakening his position with Kansas constituents.
The packed schedule could also include an unprecedented vote to override a veto from Obama on legislation that would allow the families of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to sue the Saudi Arabian government.
Obama objects to the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which passed unanimously in both chambers. It would allow Sept. 11 families to sue the Saudi Arabian government, which has been loosely connected with some of the terrorists.
Obama and other critics of the bill, including former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, say the legislation would make it easier for foreigners to sue the United States and would weaken U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia, a key Middle East ally.
A White House spokesman would not confirm to the Washington Examiner that the veto message is coming this week, however. “We are just not getting into timing,” spokesman Eric Schultz said.
The president has until Sept. 23 to veto the bill and GOP leaders said they expect to receive the veto message before the end of the week.
“They want to keep pressure on us” to finish the spending deal, said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, explaining why he believes the vetoed bill has not yet arrived on Capitol Hill. “My hope is … we’ll wrap all this up next week.”
