Hello Liz,

The House of Representative after a long three weeks without a Speaker elected Mike Johnson, of Louisiana. He promised to swifty deal with pending legislation and in the first vote of his speakership passed a bipartisan resolution to support Israel. Then on November 15th Johnson avoided a government shutdown passing continuing resolutions to January 19th and Feb 2nd. Congress left town this week for the Thanksgiving holiday but will return Monday and work through December 15th. From the wars in Ukraine and the Gaza strip to Presidential debates.... this fall in Washington has involved fast breaking international and domestic news. It hard to take time to appreciate the season and what we are thankful for. We do wish you all a good holiday, and wanted to share this prayer...a reminder to appreciate all that is given to us...

Speaker Johnson averts a Government Shutdown

Speaker Johnson sent a continuing resolution to the Senate on Tues Nov. 14, that passed that Wednesday night averting once again a government shutdown....But it was something of a deja vu moment. Speaker McCarthy passed a similar CR on a vote of 336 to 95 with 90 republicans voting no. Speaker Johnson passed his CR on a vote of 335 with 93 republicans voting no, and no funding for the war in Ukraine or Israel. The bill created tensions in his caucus with conservative members demanding funding cuts to the appropriation bills in the future. Nonetheless, Johnson with Democratic votes got a bill to the Senate, that created a stopgap two - tiered deadline structure keeping part of the government funded till January 19, while funding the military and some of the government's biggest domestic programs until Feb. 2.

The idea of staggered funding deadlines is so lawmakers are not stuck with a massive 12 bill bundle to negotiate. Democrats were pleased that Johnson didn't pursue funding cuts and that the Defense budget had the later Feb 2, deadline. But many republicans wanted an end of the year deadline. The House cancelled the remainder of its schedule last week after a conservative rebellion. But when they return after Thanksgiving, they will have to start conferencing spending bills if there is any hope of meeting the January and February deadlines.

Both sides are squaring off Dems want no slashing of programs preferring McCarthy's budget deal and Reps want a budget cut plan from Johnson before passing any spending bills. Each side will have to reconcile differences across a dozen bills in the new year. While Johnson is vowing there will be no more stopgap measures, meaning Jan and Feb could be hard deadlines.

Indian country continues to be concerned about cuts or caps to federal domestic spending where most funding for Tribal Nations is located. Other concerns are proposals for unnecessary reforms to the Federal Energy infrastructure permitting process, any increased work requirements for programs like Medicaid; and plans to rescind any unspent covid-19 funding.

We will have to wait and see how the partisan differences may be resolved in the new year.