In a Dear Colleague letter sent shortly before his October 25, 2023 election to Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA-04) laid out his plans to tackle funding the federal government in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, which is already underway, and FY 2025.
Speaker Johnson proposed to start floor consideration of multiple appropriations bills this week.
For the Commerce Justice Science (CJS) appropriations legislation, he proposed to skip committee markup and take it straight to the floor the week of November 6.
“As all this is being completed, if another stopgap measure is needed to extend government funding beyond the November 17 deadline,” which is when the current Continuing Resolution (CR) funding the federal government will expire, Speaker Johnson proposed a new CR to last until either, “January 15 or April 15 (based on what can obtain Conference consensus), to ensure the Senate cannot jam the House with a Christmas omnibus.�
Speaker Johnson also proposed passing a budget resolution in January-April, 2024, and completing all FY 2025 appropriations bills by May or June. He specified that the House should not take a district work period during August “unless all 12 appropriations bills have passed the House.”
While the Speaker admitted in his letter that his schedule was �ambitious,� the odds may be in his favor with the House GOP more firmly united in his corner (at least for now).
Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate has made no progress bringing its versions of the FY 2024 appropriations bills to the floor, although a new agreement suggested that the full Senate may consider a �minibus� combo of three of the bills on the floor this week (not including CJS).
(Forget where funding stands in the FY 2024 CJS appropriations legislation? Refer back to this blog from the Census Project.)
