For all the latest developments in Congress, follow WTOP Capitol Hill correspondent Mitchell Miller at Today on the Hill.
D.C. appears to have dodged a billion-dollar bullet with Senate approval of a bill to fix a big budget problem, but the House still needs to approve it.
The decision to bring the legislation to the floor will be up to House Speaker Mike Johnson, and the issue won’t be resolved until Congress returns to session next week.
The measure was approved by the Senate, moments after lawmakers voted for a stopgap spending bill to avoid a government shutdown on Friday night.
It was co-sponsored by Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who spoke on its behalf on the Senate floor, noting it would “simply fix a mistake” that was in the House continuing resolution that would have forced the District to return to 2024 budget levels, and forcing D.C. to come up with $1.1 billion in cuts.
“Reducing D.C.’s local funding expenditures will not result in a dollar of federal savings,” Collins said.
That is a critical point that was also made by Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen and other local lawmakers, who co-sponsored the legislation.
Perhaps most significantly, Collins said that President Donald Trump and House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole have indicated they back the legislation.
Johnson has relied heavily on Trump’s support and the president persuaded several conservatives to vote for the short-term spending bill that averted a government shutdown — something they usually oppose.
Politico reports some conservatives have urged Johnson to ignore the D.C. bill, even though it doesn’t affect federal tax dollars.
If Johnson brings the bill up for a vote, it will likely pass since Democrats would provide more than enough support, even if some Republicans voted against it.
Push to get bill passed
D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton has said she is “grateful” to the Senate for correcting what she called a “grave error.”
“I will work with my colleagues to get the bill passed in the House,” she said in a statement. “This process, however, only helps to highlight the need for D.C. statehood.”
The ACLU of D.C. on Monday urged the House to quickly pass the legislation to restore the billion dollars in spending authority.
“No one elected their representative to micromanage how the District spends its own tax dollars,” Monica Hopkins, the group’s executive director said in a statement. “And certainly no one elected their members of Congress to slash D.C.’s budget in a way that will have widespread, damaging, and completely avoidable effects.”
Norton also noted that under current provisions, D.C. will continue to be exempt from a federal shutdown.
The continuing resolution approved by Congress and signed into law by the president over the weekend, extends federal funding through Sept. 30.
Democrats have complained that they were kept out of the budget discussions on the continuing resolutions by Republicans and worry that it will enhance Trump’s ability to continue making major cuts in the federal workforce.
Mayor Muriel Bowser has tried to work with Trump and Republicans on various issues, including efforts to return federal workers to their offices.
She also recently announced that work will remove the “Black Lives Matter” letters painted on the street north of the White House.
She has said in a statement that D.C. “will continue working” with the House on final passage of the bill involving the city’s budget.
Bowser said that must be done, “to ensure critical services provided in the nation’s capital, including our police officers, firefighters, teachers, medical services and hospital network, aren’t haphazardly cut in the middle of the fiscal year.”
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