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The House and Senate are in session this week.
As the House returns following a week-long recess, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) looks to find common ground amongst the Republican conference to move forward with a third budget reconciliation bill, this time focused on defense-related funding priorities from the Trump administration. What is slowing progress around the third reconciliation bill is the time constraints and uncertainty of the potential provisions in the bill. Added to the problems amongst Republicans are issues associated with appropriators frustrated with the overuse of the reconciliation process, taking away from the work typically reserved for the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.
On Monday evening, the Senate passed the amended 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act (H.R. 6644), which revises federal housing programs, including by expanding available financing for affordable housing and authorizing new competitive grant programs for planning and community development activities. The legislation passed by an overwhelming margin of 85-5 and now awaits House action. Speaker Johnson is putting the bill on the House floor on Tuesday evening, under suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority to pass; it will likely then be signed into law by the end of this week. This housing legislation represents a rare act of bipartisanship in Congress and finishes the work after nearly 12 months of negotiations. One of the key sticking points centered around banning institutional investors from owning more than 350 single-family homes, an amendment that made it into the final version of the bill and that has support from President Donald Trump and Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
On Wednesday, President Trump plans to meet with Senate Republicans to discuss a key legislative item that he has weighed in on throughout the 119th Congress: the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE) America Act (H.R. 7296). The legislation would require individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections. The bill has no support amongst Democrats, and many Republicans, especially in the Senate, are unsure how to find a path to passing the bill and believe Trump’s focus on the legislation could backfire during the upcoming midterm elections.
The House returns on Tuesday evening and is scheduled to consider twelve bills under suspension of the rules, including the Disaster Loan Accountability and Reform Act (H.R. 4238), which modifies the Small Business Administration (SBA) disaster loan program to require additional oversight and reports regarding the program; the COVID Fraud Transparency Act of 2026 (H.R. 826), which requires the SBA's Office of Inspector General to report quarterly about fraud cases involving certain COVID-19 loans; the Main Street Competes Act (H.R. 8882), which requires the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to separately report biennially to the SBA on how such agency's enforcement of federal antitrust law has promoted competition and deterred anticompetitive conduct; and the Emergency Conservation Program Improvement Act of 2025 (S. 629), which revises the Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) and the Emergency Forest Restoration Program (EFRP) to expand eligibility for payments to agricultural producers and owners of forest land impacted by natural disasters. The chamber will also consider four bills pursuant to a rule, including the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act (H.R. 9237), a package of more than 60 bills designed to reform the Departments of Veterans Affairs’ healthcare and benefit services; the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act (H.R. 1181), which prohibits payment card networks from using merchant codes that distinguish firearms retailers from general-merchandise retailers or sporting-goods retailers; as well as two of the House’s FY27 appropriations bills, Energy and Water Development (H.R. 9022) and National Security and State Department (H.R. 8595).
The House will hold multiple committee hearings and markups throughout the week, including an Appropriations Committee markup of the FY27 Defense spending bill; a Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight hearing on Safeguarding Federal Research Funds: The False Claims Act's Role in Combating Grant Fraud; an Agriculture Committee meeting to Review the Implementation of Farm Safety Net, Disaster, and Conservation Programs; an Agriculture Subcommittee on Forestry and Horticulture hearing on Reviewing Partnerships to Enhance Management of the National Forest System; and a Small Business Committee hearing on From Startup to Scale: The Role of the SBA Office of Investment and Innovation in Powering America’s Small Businesses.
The Senate will consider the nominations of Darrell Owens to be U.S. Representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe; John Marck to be a U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Texas; Michael Hendershot to be a U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Ohio; and Arthur Jones to be a U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Texas. On Tuesday afternoon, the Senate also passed a House-passed War Powers Resolution (H. Con. Res. 86) by a vote of 50-48, directing the President to remove U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran. GOP Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) joined 46 Senate Democrats in voting for the resolution.
The Senate will also hold numerous committee hearings and markups this week, including a Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing to examine the affordability agenda; a Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation, Space, and Innovation hearing on Close Calls: Improving Safety Across the National Airspace System; a Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Reforming the U.S. Postal Service’s Broken Business Model; a Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution hearing on Protecting American Citizenship IV: America 250 and Reclaiming American Citizenship; and a Finance Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy hearing on the Future of Social Security.
On Tuesday, voters in Maryland, New York, and Utah head to the polls to vote in Democratic and Republican primary elections for U.S. House and Senate races. Voters in South Carolina will also vote in primary runoff elections in several congressional districts on Tuesday.
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