The Republican-led House loaded its funding measures with provisions that have no chance of becoming law, as both parties look toward a bigger fight later this year, most likely after the elections.
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With a government funding deadline looming at the end of September and a high-stakes election in November, lawmakers have entered a period of legislative theatrics.
The Republican-led House voted on Friday to strip President Biden’s homeland security secretary and secretary of state of their salaries. It approved measures banning military installations from having drag queen story hours for children. And it passed legislation prohibiting paid leave for Pentagon employees who get an abortion.
The provisions were included in three spending bills to fund the Departments of Defense, State and Homeland Security that House Republicans muscled through largely along party lines — even though none of them have any hope of becoming law.
With a government funding deadline looming at the end of September and a high-stakes election in November, lawmakers have entered a period of legislative theatrics, where each chamber is advancing spending bills that the other will never approve.
In the House, for a second year in a row, that has meant that Republican leaders have opened the floodgates to a barrage of conservative priorities. They include defunding initiatives to combat climate change and promote diversity and slashing the budgets of Biden administration officials — sometimes with little resistance from Democrats, who know those proposals will never be enacted.
“None of these bills — none of them — will be signed into law the way they are written right now,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts. “We all know that this is not about serious legislating. This is about show business right now, performing for the most extreme right wing of the Republican base, and it is a waste of time.”
The scenes played out this week in the House, as lawmakers voted on dozens of amendments that presaged the bitter spending fight Congress will take up this fall. The House-passed bills provide a starting marker for bipartisan negotiations, meaning lawmakers will have to yet again bridge a vast chasm between the legislation passed by the Republican-led House and the Democratic-controlled Senate.
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Source: nytimes.com
