Defense funding bill avoids last year’s false starts 

The House of Representatives Tuesday voted 207-201 to adopt a special rule (H. Res. 1316) to consider three annual appropriations bills for the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and State.   

The successful procedural effort must have elicited a silent sigh of collective relief from majority party leaders, appropriators and Rules Committee members alike. That’s because last year, it took three special rules to finally bring the defense money bill before the House for debate and amendment. It only took five and six Republicans, respectively, to defeat the first two rules since all the Democrats voted together in opposition.  

What so upset that handful of Republicans that they would defy their own leadership and bring the legislative agenda to a screeching halt during the last two weeks of September 2023? The most plausible explanation was disgust with their own leadership for a delayed process that put them up against the wall of a possible Oct. 1 government shutdown. Democrats were even accusing Republicans of wanting to “shut it down” to demonstrate their disdain for government.

Historically, the appropriations process in Congress, involving 12 bills funding all the departments and agencies of government are considered by the House and Senate over the summer, with September devoted to reconciling the differences between the two bodies. Oct. 1, when the new fiscal year begins, is the drop-dead date. Last year only the military construction money bill had passed the House in July, with the other 11 measures hanging fire into late September. 

Fiscally conservative Republicans were tired of governing by continuing appropriations resolutions (CRs) and omnibus money bills, and with deficits running $2 trillion annually and a national debt of $33 trillion. The half dozen or so Republicans who brought down the first two defense appropriations rules last year were not party outliers. Most House Republicans shared the views of their debt-defying colleagues.  

During debate on the first two defense rules last year, Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) did not yield debate time to those of his GOP colleagues he knew would only express their disgust with their own leaders, the process and its costly results. New tactics were needed if any rule was to be adopted under the circumstances.    

Cole’s winning gambit on the third rule was to turn the floor management of the rule over to Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), encourage Roy to recognize some GOP colleagues to air their grievances during floor debate, and add three other appropriations bills to the mix for the departments of State, Homeland Security and Agriculture. 

That last change is what I call “strategic packaging” and it probably saved the day. The choice of Roy to manage the third rule also made a difference. He is a highly intelligent and skillful debater who can persuade his fellow Freedom Caucus members to follow his lead.    

During the Sept. 26 floor debate on the third rule, one of the members Roy yielded to was Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) who minced no words in condemning his leadership and the late process. He probably startled the Democrats’ rule manager, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), when he agreed with McGovern’s critique that Republicans had a do-nothing, go-nowhere record. 

In Gaetz’s words: “Over the last eight months this House has been poorly led. We own that and we have to do something about it.” He concluded: “My Democratic colleagues will have an opportunity to do something about that too and we will see if they will bail out our failed Speaker.” The House adopted the third defense rule, 216-212, with only one Republican, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), voting against it. 

On Oct. 3, exactly a week after his floor remarks on that third rule, Gaetz made good on his threat, offering a privileged motion to vacate the speakership of Rep. Kevin McCarthy. It read simply: “Resolved, That the office of Speaker of the House of Representatives is hereby declared to be vacant.” After an hour of debate, the House adopted the Gaetz resolution, 216-210, with eight Republicans and all Democrats voting to oust the Speaker.   

It took more than three weeks in October and four nominees before the House elected Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) as McCarthy’s successor. On May 8 of this year, Greene offered a motion to remove Speaker Johnson from office for not honoring his promises of a more regular order. The House tabled the resolution, 359-43, with most Democrats rallying to Johnson’s support (this time).      

It is tempting to predict that this year’s earlier start bodes well for a timely completion of the appropriations process. However, there is a catch-22 in the final section of this rule, identical to one in last year’s third rule. It bars the House Clerk from transmitting to the Senate the Homeland Security appropriations measure “until notified by the Speaker that H.R. 2 [the comprehensive border security bill] as passed by the House on May 11, 2023, has been enacted into law.”  

That caveat was largely responsible for putting the two houses at loggerheads last year, necessitating a string of serial continuing resolutions, and delaying finalization of the appropriations process until March 1 — five months into the new fiscal year. Brace yourselves for a possible repeat performance.  

Don Wolfensberger is a 28-year staff veteran of Congress, culminating as chief of staff of the House Rules Committee in 1995.  He is author of “Congress and the People: Deliberative Democracy on Trial” (2000), and, “Changing Cultures in Congress: From Fair Play to Power Plays” (2018).  The views expressed are solely his own.