WASHINGTON – For congressional Republicans, it’s put up or shut up time.
After capturing control of the Senate and expanding their House majority in November’s midterm elections, GOP leaders viewed a massive government-wide spending bill as a way to set their committee chairs up to craft their own appropriations measures next year.
“Clear the deck” became a rally call among Capitol Hill Republicans, eager to revive the practice of passing annual appropriations bills throughout the year. How GOP leaders did it wasn’t pretty late last week — and there are angry members in both parties — but the “cromnibus” spending bill they shoved through the House as part of a larger package was, in part, aimed at doing just that.
The cromnibus is so named because it features an 11-department omnibus appropriations bill and one continuing resolution.
And come January, when Republicans run Congress, members say the pressure is on.
Senate Appropriations Committee member Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the inclusion of a number of policy provisions in appropriations bill, like one to ease the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law, means his party will be under the gun.
“I think there’s a lot of pressure on the Republican Party to pass the appropriations bills in the normal course of business,” Graham told Defense News on Dec. 12. “And I think there’s pressure on the Democratic Party to rehabilitate itself. So I think this combined pressure could create a better Congress.”
Another Sen. Appropriations Committee member, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the incoming ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also senses an uptick in the political onus on the GOP to move spending bills as they have promised.
“I think there will be a great pressure on them to move the bills through regular order,” Reed said in a brief interview.
One Senate aide said House Republican leaders inserted language easing the Dodd-Frank law into the cromnibus without notifying Democrats’ chief negotiator, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland,.
The move angered many congressional Democrats, with House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California accusing Republicans of “blackmailing” her members into providing enough votes to ensure its passage in the lower chamber.
Reed signaled some of the controversial cromnibus provisions could deepen years-long tensions that have helped end the regular order of sending appropriations and authorization bills to the president’s desk.
“I think a lot of the extraneous provisions, if it was just one,” he said with a laugh, “that would better around here than several.”
At stake for the Pentagon and US defense sector is budget stability, something officials and executives say is crucial for their ability to plan against threats and make business decisions.
GOP senators and sources believe the upper chamber’s inability to achieve regular order in recent years will be alleviated when Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., takes over as majority leader.
“It may not be unlimited on amendments on the floor,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., a contender for Budget Committee chairman in the next Congress. “But people are going to see a very different Senate that is more in the tradition of what the Senate should do.”
But one defense lobbyist with ties to senior Republican members noted “the problem for the majority is going to be whether they have the votes on spending bills.”
In the Senate, that means keeping all 54 Republicans in line and getting at least a half-dozen Democrats to join them in achieving the magical 60-vote threshold.
In the House, it means keeping the GOP tea party wing in line — or, as the lobbyist notes, leadership swallowing hard and “continuing to rely on Democratic votes to pass bills.”
But that might prove tricky with Democrats leaving town last week with a bad taste in their mouths because “memories never fade in this town,” the lobbyist said.
Gordon Adams, who oversaw national defense budgeting for the Clinton administration, believes that on passing final versions of spending bills, “the Republicans are going to be hard pressed to do it.”
“They’ve got problems with their own caucus,” Adams said. “Is [the cromnibus] proof you can actually govern or just a party of opposition? I don’t think the GOP is constituted in either chamber in a way that it can govern. I don’t expect them to pass much.”
On Capitol Hill, the controversial provisions in the cromnibus “aren’t the straw that broke the camel’s back because its back was already broken,” Adams said. “No one wants to make deals, just stick it in the eye of the other guy.
What’s more, the GOP could spend most of its energy on “trying to bring down the administration,” Adams said. “So I don’t see the Republicans being able to return to regular order.” ■
Email: jbennett@defensenews.com.
