Congress is back. There’s a ton of unfinished business.

Jan 09, 2024

Presented by

The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) confer during the lighting of the Capitol Menorah at the U.S. Capitol

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) talk at the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 12, 2023. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS — Congress is back for 2024. It’s filled with 2023 problems.

Chaos controlled Congress last year and now it’s coming back to haunt the House and Senate. Tough funding decisions were kicked to this year. So were border negotiations. And the question of Ukraine funding.

In 2023, the House GOP conference was paralyzed by division. The slim Republican House majority left little margin for error. Those divisions haven’t gone away. And now, as a result of various departures, absences, and an expulsion, the Republican majority is about to get smaller for a period of time.

Against that backdrop, there is a challenging congressional to-do list over the next few weeks. Headaches and all, here is what Congress has on their plate in 2024:

LOOMING SPENDING DEADLINES: The 118th Congress faces not one but two spending deadlines. The first deadline is only ten days away on Jan. 19, where Congress will have to vote on funding for Departments of Agriculture, Transportation, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development and the Food and Drug Administration.

But even if they avoid a partial government shutdown in January, another shutdown could be around the corner. Congress has until Feb. 2 to decide on spending for the Defense Department and most other federal agencies.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has made some progress, but there’s still a ways to go. And finding agreement won’t be an easy task — the fractious House Republicans have recently lost a handful of members, including former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) who resigned and Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who was expelled. In addition to Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), who is scheduled to leave on Jan. 21, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) may miss upcoming votes after a recent cancer-related surgery, leaving the GOP with barely any wiggle room to lose votes.

The GOP’s right flank is already upset over Johnson’s bipartisan deal Sunday, which establishes funding limits for the military and domestic programs for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1. Talks of continuing current spending levels through March — a process Congress has repeated since September — will likely make them angrier. So Johnson and his team will either need to appease this faction of his party — or rely on Democrats during his latest spending test as the new Speaker.

BORDER NEGOTIATIONS: When Congress left in December, the Senate was still stuck with figuring out border and Ukraine negotiations. The Senate is back in session and still pursuing a deal.

Lead negotiators said progress was made over the holiday break, but it is still unknown when a deal could be made or when a bill could reach a floor vote. But even if the bill does get a vote, it’s going to be an uphill battle getting the entire House Republican conference to support it — especially as conservatives’ border frustrations intensified over the past month.

Sixty Republicans visited the border alongside Johnson last week for a first-hand look at the situation as record numbers of migrants cross the border. Many came back repeating the phrase “shut down the border or shut down the government” — a worrying message for any Republican leadership member looking to pass spending bills in a few days.

Similarly, tomorrow the House Republicans begin their first impeachment hearing into Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. His impeachment inquiry, which so far has been overshadowed by efforts to impeach President Joe Biden, will take place right in the middle of these border negotiations — and could lead to the ouster of a Cabinet secretary for the first time in almost 150 years.

ELECTION YEAR: Congress was unproductive in 2023 when they had a full calendar to work with. In 2024, Congress has less legislative working days and the parties are focused on the upcoming elections, leaving less time to find consensus in a divided Congress. Did we mention that the congressional primary election season begins in about two months?

The current congressional calendar has members back in their districts during October to enable them to campaign in the final weeks before the election. That’s in addition to the month-long break in August.

Meanwhile, more and more members are calling it quits after being home over the holiday break, adding to the long list of retirees announced last year. Just this morning, Rep. Greg Pence (R-Ind.), brother of Vice President Mike Pence, announced his retirement, joining Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) and Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.) who announced their retirements earlier this week.

That makes 43 House members who are not running for reelection next year.

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at mmccarthy@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @Reporter_Mia.

A message from The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network:

Congress: Support the highest possible increases for cancer research funding at the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute to make time. Literally. More than 1.9 million people were diagnosed with cancer in 2023 alone. But by investing in the research of today, you’re helping prevent, detect, and treat many of the cancers of tomorrow, creating countless moments for patients and their loved ones in the process. Fight Cancer. Make Time.

What'd I Miss?

— Austin diagnosed with cancer, didn’t tell Biden for weeks: Doctors today disclosed that the reason Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was hospitalized on Jan. 1 was due to complications from a late-December surgery to treat prostate cancer, answering a major question involving the Pentagon chief’s mysterious health situation but raising further issues with how the episode was handled. Less than an hour after the announcement, the White House disclosed that President Joe Biden didn’t learn of Austin’s diagnosis until today, weeks after the secretary learned he had cancer and days after the two spoke on the phone.

— GOP senators clash over conditioning Ukraine aid on border results: Senate Republicans tangled today over how far to push their border security priorities, with conservatives raising the idea of conditioning money for Ukraine on the United States meeting certain border security metrics, according to attendees of a conference lunch. Negotiations linking immigration restrictions and foreign aid are mostly focused on policy changes that can earn bipartisan support, rather than restricting additional cash to Ukraine until the federal government meets certain migration metrics. The idea was rejected in those talks because a significant number of Republicans do not support that proposal, which could make it more difficult to get money to Ukraine in a timely fashion.

— Trump’s immunity claim gets frosty reception at appeals court: A federal appeals court panel strongly suggested today that it would reject Donald Trump’s claims of immunity from criminal charges related to his effort to subvert the 2020 election. With Trump looking on, the three judges expressed deep skepticism of his contention that a president could not be prosecuted — even for assassinating a rival or selling military secrets — if he were not first impeached and convicted by Congress.

GLOBAL PLAYBOOK IS TAKING YOU TO DAVOS! Unlock the insider's guide to one of the world's most influential gatherings as POLITICO's Global Playbook takes you behind the scenes of the 2024 World Economic Forum. Author Suzanne Lynch will be on the ground in the Swiss Alps, bringing you the exclusive conversations, shifting power dynamics and groundbreaking ideas shaping the agenda in Davos. Stay in the know with POLITICO's Global Playbook, your VIP pass to the world’s most influential gatherings. SUBSCRIBE NOW.

Nightly Road to 2024

‘STAY THE COURSE’ — Gov. Ron DeSantis opened up Florida’s annual session today with a stripped-down State of the State speech that was one-part presidential campaign messaging and a recitation of some of his signature policies over the last several years, reports POLITICO.

DeSantis launched his presidential campaign last year with heavy support from Florida Republican legislators, who tried to give him a boost by passing contentious bills during the 2023 session on guns, gender orientation, abortion and education that he has touted on the trail to GOP primary voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and beyond.

But his campaign has failed to gain traction and DeSantis finds himself still behind former President Donald Trump, according to multiple polls. Monday’s Iowa caucuses look like a make-or-break moment for his struggling candidacy even though DeSantis has recently vowed to keep campaigning after Iowa regardless of the results.

Now, DeSantis’ wish list at his annual State of the State address was simple: “Stay the course,” he told legislators. “The state of our state is strong. Let’s keep doing what works. Let’s continue to make Florida the envy of the nation.”

CLOSING THE GAP — Nikki Haley is holding steady in second place in New Hampshire two weeks out from the state’s key primary, two new polls released today show. But whether the former South Carolina governor is within striking distance of former President Donald Trump depends on the survey.

The University of New Hampshire/CNN poll shows the gap between Trump and Haley in the single digits, with the former president at 39 percent support among likely GOP primary voters and the former U.N. ambassador at 32 percent — just outside of the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points. The poll of 1,864 New Hampshire adults, drawn from a probability-based panel, was conducted online between Jan. 4-8.

The Suffolk University/Boston Globe/USA TODAY survey, meanwhile, puts Trump at 46 percent and Haley at 27 percent. The poll of 1,000 voters was conducted Jan. 3-7 by live calls to landlines and cellphones and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

A message from The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network:

AROUND THE WORLD

A US soldier guarding a look out point at the Qayyarah military base during the ongoing operation to recapture the last major Iraqi city under the control of the Islamic State (IS) group jihadists.

A U.S. soldier guards a look out point at the Qayyarah military base during the operation to recapture Mosul from the control of the Islamic State group jihadists on Oct. 20, 2016. | Yasin Akgul/AFP via Getty Images

PLEASE DON’T GO — Iraq’s prime minister privately told American officials that he wants to negotiate keeping U.S. forces in the country despite his recent announcement that he would begin the process of removing them from the country.

Senior advisers to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani told U.S. officials that his declaration was “an attempt to satisfy domestic political audiences” and that Sudani himself “remained committed” to negotiating the coalition’s future presence in Iraq, according to a Jan. 6 State Department cable obtained by POLITICO.

There’s been public uproar in Iraq over a U.S. drone strike last week that killed a senior Iran-backed militia member in Baghdad, and Sudani’s office announced on Friday that his government is putting together a bilateral committee to end the presence of the U.S.-led international military coalition focused on preventing a resurgence of the Islamic State.

Iraq’s willingness to keep U.S. troops in the country is critical for the Biden administration. The U.S. sees its presence in Iraq as important for not only preventing a resurgence of ISIS but also for countering Iranian influence in the region. Any decision by al-Sudani to kick American forces out of the country could also undermine the administration’s effort to prevent the war in Gaza from widening.

While U.S. officials have been told that Iraq is willing to discuss keeping American forces in the country, it is possible that political machinations inside the Iraqi parliament force him to take steps to remove American forces.

POLITICO AT CES® 2024: We are going ALL On at CES 2024 with a special edition of the POLITICO Digital Future Daily newsletter. The CES-focused newsletter will take you inside the most powerful tech event in the world, featuring revolutionary products that cut across verticals, and insights from industry leaders that are shaping the future of innovation. The newsletter runs from Jan. 9-12 and will focus on the public policy-related aspects of the gathering. Sign up today to receive exclusive coverage of the show.

Nightly Number

The number of counties in Florida under a state of emergency after strong storms hammered the Panhandle today, leaving a wide swath of damage across the region. Gov. Ron DeSantis declared the state of emergency that directs the state to seek federal assistance from the White House and activates the state National Guard.

RADAR SWEEP

SPY NOVEL(TIES) — Did you know that the CIA has a creative writing group? Neither did Johannes Lichtman, a D.C.-based novelist, until he was invited to speak to the group recently. After learning whether there would be a speaking fee — there is none, though they do let you eat in the CIA dining room — Lichtman nevertheless accepted the invitation to Langley and wrote about his experience for The Paris Review. Read his account of bureaucracy, secrecy and creativity, and how they mix, here.

Parting Image

On this date in 1979: Swedish pop group ABBA performs during a UNICEF benefit concert in the United Nations General Assembly hall in New York.

On this date in 1979: Swedish pop group ABBA performs during a UNICEF benefit concert in the United Nations General Assembly hall in New York. | Marty Lederhandler/AP

Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.

A message from The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network:

Cancer takes away many things, but the most devastating is time. And while policies and federal research investment have helped avert 3.8 million cancer deaths since 1991, the fight against the country’s second most common cause of death is far from over. With over 609,000 deaths and 1.9 million diagnoses last year, there is still work to do in the fight against cancer. And that is where you come in.

When Congress prioritizes ending cancer as we know it, you literally make time for patients, loved ones, caregivers, and everybody else affected by 200 diseases known as cancer. By investing in the research of today, you’re helping prevent, detect, and treat many of the cancers of tomorrow, creating countless moments for cancer patients and their loved ones in the process.

Fight Cancer. Make Time.