Congress returns with only three weeks to avert government shutdown

WASHINGTON – After a six-week summer break, lawmakers return to the Capitol on Monday facing a changed political landscape but also a difficult, very familiar problem: figuring out how to avert a shutdown.

They have just three weeks to do so. Funds for the government run out at the end of the fiscal year on September 30, and former President Donald Trump is pushing Republicans to force a shutdown if certain demands are not met. A shutdown would close federal agencies and national parks, limit public services and furlough millions of workers just weeks before the election.

The presidential campaign is entering the home stretch of Congress, with the group expected to leave at the end of the month and return after Election Day. When the House of Representatives went into summer recess on July 25, President Joe Biden had just dropped out of the presidential race, Democrats were preparing to nominate Vice President Kamala Harris as their new candidate, and Republicans were working hastily to devise a new strategy against Harris.

House Republicans have now agreed on some lines of attack that they will highlight in politically charged Republican hearings and investigations into Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, on issues such as border security and the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Here's what to expect during the final three weeks of the convention before it returns to the campaign trail in October.

Another shutdown threat

Congress' biggest task is to provide funding for the government until the September 30 deadline. It is clear that lawmakers need a stopgap bill to keep the government running after the elections – there is still a long way to go on a year-round funding measure. But the details and scope of the bill are cause for concern.

Under pressure from Trump and right-wing lawmakers, the Republican-led House of Representatives released a stopgap bill that would keep the money flowing until March 28 and tie it to the SAVE Act, a Republican-led bill to overhaul election laws across the country that requires proof of citizenship to vote. Democrats oppose the latter measure, pointing out that it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote and that it carries steep penalties, making the practice very rare. They also say it could discourage Americans from voting, since many cannot easily obtain passports or birth certificates.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said House Republicans “took a critically important step to keep the federal government funded and safeguard our federal election process.” But if the bill passes the House, it will get nowhere in the Democratic-led Senate, and Johnson will have to decide whether to back down or stand firm as Republicans risk being blamed for a shutdown by instigating the stalemate.

“If Speaker Johnson pushes House Republicans down this highly partisan path, the likelihood of a shutdown will increase significantly, and Americans will know that the responsibility for it rests with House Republicans,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) and Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Friday in a joint statement following the bill's release.

The Farm Bill for agricultural programs also expires on September 30. Its term has already been postponed once and is expected to be extended with a temporary extension through a preliminary resolution.

Investigations of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives

After focusing largely on the investigation into Biden, Republicans in the 118th Congress are now turning their attention to the new Democratic presidential candidacy.

The House Education Committee subpoenaed Walz last week seeking information about how his administration responded to a major pandemic fraud scheme in Minnesota. Although the committee had been investigating this case since 2022 and had previously requested information from the state Department of Education, this subpoena was the first time it had contacted Walz himself.

Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee last month launched an investigation into Walz's contacts with Chinese Communist Party entities and officials, dating back to the early 1990s, when he was a teacher leading groups of students on educational trips to China.

Republicans are also focusing on the botched U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, for which the Trump campaign has criticized Harris. McCaul has threatened to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of court if he does not agree to testify about Afghanistan on Sept. 19.

House Republicans also have a slew of hearings this week focused on the “Biden-Harris administration.” There's a Judiciary Committee hearing on “The Biden-Harris Border Crisis: Victims' Perspectives.” A subcommittee on Energy and Commerce is holding a hearing titled “From Gasoline to Grocery Shopping: Americans Are Paying the Price for the Biden-Harris Energy Agenda.” And the Veterans Affairs Committee has a hearing titled “In Charge or Absent?: Examining VA Leadership Under the Biden-Harris Administration.”

Although the House committees conducting the impeachment trial against Biden released a report in August saying the president had committed impeachable offenses, given the Republicans' razor-thin majority and the skepticism of some rank-and-file members, it is unlikely that the full House will attempt to vote to impeach the president. Johnson simply thanked the committees and urged Americans to read the report in a statement at the time.

Democrats strike back

The Democrats in the House of Representatives have launched their own investigations into Republican presidential candidate Trump, but are in the minority and do not have the power to issue subpoenas.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, and Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the panel's National Security, Border and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee, sent Trump a letter last week demanding that he provide evidence that he never received money from Egypt.

Democratic leaders said they were investigating a possible “$10 million bribe payment by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi” to the Trump campaign in 2016, after The Washington Post reported on Aug. 2 about a secret Justice Department investigation into the alleged bribery; NBC News has not independently confirmed the report.

“You will surely agree that the American people have a right to know whether a former president — and a current presidential candidate — accepted an illegal campaign contribution from a brutal foreign dictator,” the Democrats wrote.

The Trump campaign responded by calling the story “fake news.”

In the Senate, Schumer has informed his lawmakers that they will vote on the confirmation of nominees and federal judges selected by Biden for the rest of the year – including in the “lame duck” session after the election.