5 things to watch out for from Congress in 2024
By Michael Jones
It’s eerily quiet on Capitol Hill to start the new year, with most members still back home in their states and districts until they’re due back in Washington next week. Rather than enjoy the final days of peace and quiet, I’ve taken another route: Look ahead with excited trepidation at what 2024 has in store for congressional politics.
After all, there’s not just a presidential election on tap this year. The House majority, which Republicans control by a meager three-vote margin due to the George Santos expulsion and Kevin McCarthy’s early retirement after his removal as speaker, is up for grabs. And Democrats like their chances of reclaiming power and electing Hakeem Jeffries as the first Black House speaker.
Across the Capitol, Senate Democrats and their two-seat edge face a brutal map that puts them on defense in several battleground states. Their saving grace? Republican candidate quality—or lack thereof. The more MAGA the winners of the GOP primaries are, the better the chances Senate Democrats can defy conventional wisdom for the second cycle in a row.
Below are five major storylines that will inform the electoral landscape and are worth keeping tabs on. As was the case with my year-in-review column to close out 2023, this isn’t an exhaustive list. And since politics thrives on the unknown and the unexpected, it’s a safe bet to plan for more than a few curveballs. But this is a solid primer to give you a head start leading up to Election Day in 306 days.
1. The shutdown fights
Yep, you read it right. “Fights” is plural because Congress will return in less than two weeks to fund the government to avoid a partial shutdown. Two weeks later, lawmakers will be staring down a full shutdown without action.
Here’s a quick recap of how we got here: President Joe Biden signed a stop-gap funding bill known as a “continuing resolution”—or CR, for short—to keep the government open after Congress failed to fully fund the government for the second time in less than two months. Unlike normal CRs, this one consisted of two separate expiration dates for two separate sets of appropriations bills. (Four bills expire on the first deadline; the other eight on the second.)
New House Speaker Mike Johnson defended the “laddered” approach because it helped Republicans avoid being jammed with an omnibus—a single bill that combines all 12 funding bills—at the end of the year. (Republicans hate omnis because they view them as a cesspool of wasteful spending.) But in the process, the new speaker has set up a smackdown the second members return to town.
What’s wild is that House and Senate leaders have yet to agree on a topline (the cap on the amount of money appropriators are authorized to spend to fund the government). None of the funding bills can be written without it.
What’s wilder is that this all should’ve been avoided. Congress passed and the president signed into law a bill last May that set the topline at $1.59 trillion for the 2024 fiscal year. With side agreements making up the difference, funding was to remain virtually flat from last year to this year. But before the ink was dry, House Republicans reneged on the agreement, and here we are.
Suppose you were expecting Congress to be more functional than it was last year. In that case, the fact that fulfilling its fundamental responsibility to keep the government open is such a drag is reason enough not to hold your breath.
2. The impeachments
You would think with those upcoming funding deadlines, Congress would be laser focused on avoiding a government shutdown.
Instead, House Republicans are barreling ahead with an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, although they’ve yet to uncover any wrongdoing by him.
House Republicans allege Biden used his position as vice president on his son’s behalf in exchange for money or favors. They say he abused his public office to enrich his family fortune and put our national security at risk. They say he benefits from a “two-tiered justice system.” And no, they’re not talking about Donald Trump.
And while some Republicans said they voted to open a formal inquiry to broaden the GOP’s investigative powers as they search for a smoking gun, those same members concede they’ve yet to find a legitimate impeachable offense.
And this week, House Republicans announced they would move forward with impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas because they disagree with how he’s overseen Biden’s immigration policy. Remember: Few things ignite the Republican base during election season like the opportunity to demonize migrants and blame Democrats for an immigration system that’s been unfixed for four decades.
The White House and congressional Democrats dismiss both impeachment probes as political stunts instigated by Donald Trump, the twice-impeached former president whose life work represents little more than settling scores. And while Biden and Mayorkas would almost certainly be acquitted in a Senate trial, the floor time and media attention they would both require stands to distract the country from the work House Republicans aren’t doing but should be.
3. The Jeffries/Johnson relationship
Ask Hakeem Jeffries to characterize his working relationship with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the top House Democrat would describe it as positive and candid.
“We agreed to disagree without being disagreeable,” he often would say.
But Jeffries has little history with Speaker Johnson, whose ideology is less malleable than McCarthy’s and much more conservative. This has led to some friction between the two leaders after Johnson required a bill with billions in aid to Israel after the Hamas attacks to be paired with cuts to the funding congressional Democrats gave the IRS last year to go after tax cheats. Johnson has also frustrated Jeffries with the laddered CR and impeachment inquiries.
The trouble for Johnson is that he can only afford to lose three Republican votes on bills, including government funding, a litany of other must-pass bills, including the farm bill, and legislation to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. None of this moves without Democratic support.
How he navigates his relationship with Jeffries will go a long way in determining if the House can muster a modicum of productivity this year.
4. The campaign trail
As I wrote at the top, the stakes of the 2024 election are enormous. Since members would rather be home with their constituents, raising money and delighting in time away from colleagues they can’t stand, the congressional schedule is modified to accommodate the rigors of campaigning.
Get this: The House and Senate are scheduled to be out of town all August and October. And one or both chambers are scheduled to be in recess for another 12-ish weeks out of the year. In other words, Congress will be away from the Capitol for five months while vulnerable incumbents work to keep their seats and safe-seats members work to flip competitive districts.
This is great for voters who will get to see their elected officials up close and personal more than usual. But it sucks for the legislative agenda as the reduced schedule jeopardizes bipartisan priorities like prescription drug pricing reform, marijuana banking legislation, a new five-year farm bill and railway safety.
Word to the wise: If you’re wondering why an issue you care about is getting short shrift, look at the calendar—your elected leaders may be on the campaign trail.
5. Artificial intelligence
When Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and former Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio formed the Senate Artificial Intelligence Caucus, AI had yet to enter the mainstream discourse.
But in 2023, that changed with the emergence of ChatGPT and the integration of generative AI technologies into practically every tool knowledge workers use to perform their jobs.
Congress was woefully behind in its understanding of AI. So Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, Sen. Heinrich and Republican Sens. Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Todd Young of Indiana led a series of private briefings and forums to provide senators with an AI crash course.
The idea was to ensure lawmakers had baseline knowledge of the technology to create policies that established sensible guardrails without stifling innovation. But here we are 10 months away from a democracy-defining election and it’s unlikely any meaningful legislation will pass before Americans vote. So what we’re left with is an unregulated environment that allows bad actors at home and abroad to poison the political discourse with AI-generated misinformation and disinformation—and very few laws to stop it.
Michael Jones is an independent Capitol Hill correspondent and contributor for COURIER. He is the author of Once Upon a Hill, a newsletter about Congressional politics.
