As Congress approaches another government funding deadline at the end of September, some Democrats are already drawing a line in the sand: Any spending bill that passes the Senate with Democratic support needs language preventing the Trump administration from undoing the legislation with another rescission bill.
“How can Democrats not insist on assurances from Republicans — that they won’t cut a deal, get the Democrats to vote for it, and then turn around and undo the deal?” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said this week.
She told NOTUS that if a bill didn’t include language blocking the money from being rescinded, “I don’t understand what Democrats would be voting for at that point.”
After Republicans muscled through a $9-billion rescission package earlier this month that took away congressionally appropriated funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development, public broadcasting and other foreign aid programs, Democrats say they can’t simply trust Republicans to honor their spending deals.
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Instead, Democrats are trying to insert an amendment into all appropriations bills that would prevent the money from later being the target of a rescission package.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, the author of the amendment, has already watched his proposal get shot down multiple times in the Appropriations Committee on party-line votes.
But Merkley and other Democrats are demanding a floor vote on the amendment, with a cloture vote still hanging over the first appropriations bill to hit the Senate floor regarding a military construction and veterans affairs funding measure.
The amendment would disqualify appropriations in the bill from rescissions — and Democrats are adamant that it be included. But the question is whether almost all of them would vote against cloture on an appropriations bill if that language isn’t in the measure.
“We are telling them that we really want the language in there,” Sen. Patty Murray, the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, told NOTUS. “Republicans are saying ‘no.’”
When asked if Democrats would insist on the language being in the bill, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “Stay tuned.”
But there are some real questions whether Democrats would actually hold the line. Even without the amendment, the bill passed out of the Appropriations Committee unanimously earlier this month. And the Senate voted 90-8 to advance the bill to the floor. While that was just a procedural vote, Democrats may be reticent to stand firm and insist on anti-rescissions language, particularly in the face of a government shutdown.
The standoff could get even tougher if lawmakers were just voting on a continuing resolution to avoid a shutdown. Republicans only need seven Democrats to vote with them.
On Thursday, Warren was once again clear that she would need language blocking rescissions to be part of any appropriations bill, pointing out that if Republicans were unwilling to add that language, “that’s probably the first sign that they have a different plan in mind.”
“The Republicans are saying that they rolled us once, and they plan to roll us again,” Warren said. “I’m not lying down for that.”
In the wake of the Office of Management and Budget director, Russell Vought, saying the appropriations process should be more partisan and that another rescission package is on its way, Merkley’s amendment sparked a broader conversation during the markup about the power of the Appropriations Committee.
Sen. Susan Collins, the chair of the committee, told NOTUS that while negotiations about the rescissions language weren’t “necessarily” taking place, broader negotiations on the committee were.
Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, another senior appropriator, were the most outspoken Republican critics of the rescission package, with both ultimately voting against the bill. But neither of them voted for Merkley’s amendment during the committee markup.
Murkowski opposed it to “respect the jurisdiction” of OMB, even though she says she opposes another rescission bill.
“If there’s going to be a rescission that moves forward, it needs to be a rescission that is a bipartisan rescission from the beginning — one where folks in the administration have come to us and have said, ‘Do you realize that this is in this measure?’” Murkowski said in the markup. “There’s a process that we can follow that will not divide us into partisan camps, but will actually elevate the work that goes on here in the Senate, in the Congress, when it comes to the power of the purse and appropriations.”
Republicans are largely interested in preserving the Trump administration’s ability to send more rescission bills.
Some Republicans are even making that ability a prerequisite for their own support of an appropriations bill. Sen. Ron Johnson said there was “zero chance” he would go along with an amendment blocking OMB’s ability to send a new rescission bill.
“By and large, you saw it, most of us support trying to return to a reasonable, pre-pandemic level of spending. We’re a long ways from that,” Johnson said. “Rescission is one of the tools. We wouldn’t want to take that tool out of our toolbox.”
While a full amendment to prohibit rescissions may not go over well with most Republicans, some say they’re open to other solutions.
Sen. Mike Rounds, another appropriator, said an amendment preventing rescissions “probably won’t fly with our conference.”
“But that doesn’t mean that we’re not going to support legislation that we have agreed to in the past,” he said, adding that a better approach would be making sure the appropriated funds were authorized and the intent for them was very clear.
“It more accurately ties the hands of the executive branch to actually executing the laws as we have written them,” Rounds said.
Past appropriations bills have included some limiting language and passed, like ensuring adequate staffing, appropriator Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said. But that language didn’t completely tie the hands of the president, and she said she “probably” wouldn’t vote for fully prohibiting rescissions through an amendment.
“We’ve had all kinds of discussions in the committee on how they don’t like the rescissions. They’re pretty upfront on that,” Capito said of Democrats.
Another appropriator, Sen. John Hoeven, said Democrats need to engage in the appropriations process and offer the rescissions amendment.
“Whether it’ll pass or not, that’s another question, but they can offer it up,” Hoeven said. “That’s how the process works.”
“We’ve cleared on our side. We’re ready to appropriate. We’ve got a good package put together. These bills got big support out of the committee,” he added. “Everybody says they want regular order. Well, now the action needs to match rhetoric. Let’s go.”
As for a guarantee that the funds be used as Congress wrote, Hoeven said it already exists — “in the Constitution.”
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