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The Senate is in session this week, while the House will return next week.
The Senate will work on ending the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that still remains unresolved. Over the past two weeks, the Senate has held two failed procedural votes to end the DHS shutdown, which began on February 14. As the shutdown reached Day 25 on Tuesday, the Senate is still seemingly deadlocked as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Democrats are prepared to prolong the shutdown until receiving transparency and accountability changes by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Last week, the House passed the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2026 (H.R. 7744) by a vote of 221-209, the second time since late January the House has passed a stand-alone FY26 DHS spending bill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) will likely attempt to bring H.R. 7744 to the Senate floor this week, though the bill is likely to fall short of the 60 votes needed to advance.
The Senate will vote on the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act (Senate substitute amendment to H.R. 6644), which aims to address the U.S. housing affordability crisis and expand access to homeownership and includes many of the provisions of the version of the ROAD to Housing Act of 2025 passed by the Senate in October. However, House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill (R-AR) said on Friday that the Senate’s updated housing bill text needs to be altered to reflect the priorities and views of House members. Chair Hill said he was “optimistic” the lower chamber’s concerns would be addressed in the final legislation but threatened “further negotiations, including a possible conference” to reconcile the bill with the Housing for the 21st Century Act (H.R. 6644), which the House passed on February 9 by a vote of 390-9. “There are members in the House whose provisions and views were not accounted for in the current iteration of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” Hill said in a statement.
During this week’s House recess, House Republicans are holding their annual policy retreat at the Trump National Doral Miami resort in Florida. The goal for Republicans is to solidify a message and strategy for the upcoming midterm elections this year. The three-day conference presents a critical time for House Republicans in their efforts to retain the House majority for the 120th Congress (2027-28)—leadership will hope to decide on what priorities to elevate ahead of the November 3 midterm election. One item that has garnered attention at the retreat are efforts among rank-and file members to push for passage of a second budget reconciliation bill in FY 2026, which would allow for the enactment of a large legislative package that Republicans could move without the support of Democrats in either the House or Senate.
On Sunday, President Trump said that he will not sign any bills (with the exception of a FY26 spending bill to fund DHS) until the House-passed Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act (H.R. 22) is passed by the Senate, adding that a “watered down” version of the act would not do. The legislation requires individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections. The legislation is controversial and would certainly face a challenging path to passage in the upper chamber. By law, inaction by a president for longer than 10 days on a bill would result in the bill automatically becoming law. President Trump and several House Republicans have called on Senate Majority Leader Thune to go after the filibuster in the upper chamber. Doing so would allow for the Senate to move ahead with legislation on a simple majority vote, instead of needing to end debate or cloture via a 60-vote requirement.
While the House is out of session, the Senate is scheduled to be in through Thursday. On Tuesday afternoon, the Senate will vote to confirm Lt. Gen. Joshua Rudd to be a General in the U.S. Army. Through the remainder of the week, the chamber will likely vote on amendments to the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act prior to final passage. The Senate will hold numerous hearing and markups this week, including a Budget Committee hearing to examine sanctuary cities, focusing on law and order; a Judiciary Committee hearing to examine protecting American citizenship, focusing on birthright citizenship for illegal aliens and tourists; a Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee hearing to examine main street, focusing on growing the small business pet economy; a Finance Committee hearing to examine the fiscal outlook from 2027 to 2036; and a Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing to examine transparency and trust, focusing on foreign influence in higher education.
Voters in Mississippi head to the polls on Tuesday to vote in Republican and Democratic U.S. House and Senate primaries. There will also be a special House election in Georgia’s 14th congressional district to fill the vacancy caused when former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) resigned on January 5. Per Georgia state law, all candidates will run on one ballot, with a runoff election scheduled on April 7 for the top two candidates if none receive over 50 percent of the vote in the initial election.
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