Not taking care of business: Congress on winter vacation, leaving long list of challenges behind

The House has embarked on a 12-day winter recess, joining the Senate’s two-week recess and leaving a long list of critical unfinished business on Capitol Hill.

Navigating a three-vote majority, Speaker Mike Johnson rejected pressure to consider the Senate’s bipartisan $95 billion national security supplemental. That move leaves not only aid for Ukraine dangling on a branch, but also funding for Israel and Taiwan — not to mention emergency legislation to address the migrant crisis at the southern border.

As these challenges only grow, Johnson says he is turning his attention to the looming government funding deadlines. And rightfully so: when the House returns to session on Feb. 28, they’ll have just three legislative days to pass legislation to avert a partial government shutdown. A secondary government funding deadline strikes a week later on March 8 — potentially shutting down the rest of the government.

Johnson has repeatedly depended on Democrats to help keep the government open, passing short-term funding bills under suspension of the rules — requiring a two-thirds majority for passage. While the two-thirds majority is a higher threshold for passage, Johnson is able to overcome hurdles placed by members of his own majority and allow Democrats to freely help him keep the federal government open.

Those stop-gap measures — the last signed into law on Jan. 19 — were supposed to buy lawmakers additional lifelines to pass the rest of their appropriations bills. But Republicans have failed to demonstrate any substantial progress on that front since the last short-term funding bill kicked the can down the road. While lawmakers wrestle over the FY2024 funding gap from March to Sept. 30, soon the appropriations committee will