House may resume work on spending bills next week

The House may resume work on annual spending bills next week when lawmakers return from the holiday recess after the process melted down over LGBT protections.

A 2017 spending bill for legislative branch operations, typically one of the easiest of the 12 annual appropriations bills to pass, could hit the House floor next week.

A notice from the House Rules Committee, which determines how legislation is considered on the floor, said the panel will likely meet next week to finalize a limited amendment process for the measure.

{mosads}However, Republican leadership aides stressed on Thursday that next week’s schedule has not yet been finalized.

House GOP leaders have been discussing changes to the procedure used to consider most annual spending bills that allows members of either party to offer unlimited amendments. 

Republicans have been caught off-guard multiple times now by Democrats forcing votes on politically charged amendments related to the Confederate flag and preventing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Last week, an underlying Energy Department spending bill collapsed on the House floor due in large part to the adoption of a Democratic amendment that would enforce a 2014 executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Many conservatives opposed final passage due to concerns about conflicts with religious exemptions.

It’s unclear whether GOP leaders will bring the Energy Department spending bill back to the floor for a vote, or how they’ll manage amendments for other appropriations bills.

In the meantime, they can move the legislative branch appropriations bill because it has always been considered under a limited amendment process in recent years.

Last year, the House Rules Committee declined to allow a vote on a bipartisan amendment that would have banned lawmakers from flying first-class using taxpayer dollars.

And in 2014, GOP leaders prevented a vote on an amendment submitted by then-Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) that would have created a housing stipend for members of Congress, whom he said are “underpaid.”

Consideration of the legislative branch spending bill will likely resurrect the debate over lawmaker pay, which has been frozen since 2010.

Rank-and-file lawmakers in the House and Senate earn $174,000 annually, while the majority and minority leaders in both chambers make $193,400. The Speaker earns the biggest salary, at $223,500.

This year’s legislative branch spending bill also includes a provision to reverse a decision made by the Library of Congress this year to stop using the term “illegal aliens” in its subject headings. The Library of Congress deemed the phrase “pejorative,” and replaced it with “noncitizens” or “unauthorized immigration.”

Republicans opposed to the change have derided it as trying to enforce “politically correct” terminology that downplays the fact some people are in the country illegally.

Democrats, meanwhile, argue that using the term “illegal alien” is dehumanizing.