A dispute over the government budget, negotiations over immigration restrictions and aid to Ukraine, deadlines for FISA surveillance, the FAA, an agricultural bill, and an impeachment battle.
Washington, DC A divided Congress is starting the new year with several major conflicts, from disagreements over foreign aid and government budget to Republican threats to impeach President Joe Biden even though he hasn’t committed an impeachable offence.
Furthermore, it will be doing so amid an election year, with elections for Congress and the White House scheduled for November. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., who is attempting to manage a razor-thin majority and well-known strains from conservative hard-liners who toppled his predecessor, is one uncertainty surrounding these battles.
These are the five major battles Congress will face in 2024.
Congress postponed Biden’s national security package until the following year due to a high-stakes immigration policy dispute. Senate Republicans demanded stricter immigration rules in exchange for their votes supporting increased U.S. funding to Israel and Ukraine.
Democrats have made significant compromises on tightening the requirements for asylum seekers and extending the president’s authority to expeditiously deport illegal immigrants, despite senators’ insistence that progress is being made in both areas. But there are still difficult questions in a discussion that has plagued Congress for many years.
Furthermore, without US assistance, Ukraine will find it difficult to resist Russia.
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Negotiations are over the “fate of the world,” according to the party’s lead negotiator, Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut. On Christmas Day, he begged Republicans not to let Vladimir Putin take over Ukraine.
There’s no assurance that a bill will pass the Republican-led House even if the Democratic-led Senate strikes a compromise, obtains the necessary 60 votes, and passes the legislation. Hard-liners close to Johnson say he ought to veto any solution that doesn’t meet their demands for border closure. Where he will draw the line has not been disclosed.
After passing a few short-term bills to keep the government running, Congress now has two deadlines—January 19 and February 2—to avoid a government shutdown. This time, however, Johnson has made it clear that he will not back another stopgap bill and that he will back a continuing resolution that would last the entire year if Congress is unable to agree.
Both Senate Republicans and Democrats have strongly opposed it, in part because it would require large reductions in military and domestic funding in comparison to the levels that Congress and Biden agreed upon in the middle of 2023—a budget that would have been for previous years rather than this one. They argue the GOP in the House needs to honor their deal.
The amount of your word that you will uphold is not negotiable. Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., stated, “This is the very fundamentals of lawmaking.” “Therefore, we need to press House Republicans to take the agreement they pushed for seriously to prevent a shutdown on January 19.”
Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, disagreed with Johnson, saying a stopgap bill “is simply unacceptable for a year.”
There are only eight legislative days left before the first deadline and four more before the second when the House reconvenes. Furthermore, there is still no consensus on how much money should be spent or how it should be distributed among the federal government.
House Republicans concluded 2023 with a unanimous vote to formally begin their investigation into Biden’s impeachment, granting them the authority to carry out their subpoenas. They will have to choose in 2024 whether to move forward with his impeachment or back off.
However, many Republicans acknowledge that they still lack concrete proof linking Hunter Biden’s offenses to his father, so the investigation remains one in pursuit of an impeachable offense. The investigation has been derided by the White House and Democrats as a political prank by a GOP majority that wants to punish Donald Trump and has nothing substantial to give the electorate.
The vulnerable GOP legislators, 17 of whom represent districts that Biden won in 2020, will be a major force in the effort to retain their seats come election season. Will they be ready to deliver a vote that, if it is perceived as going too far, could have unintended political consequences?
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s warrantless surveillance powers were temporarily extended by Congress until April of next year. However, the fundamental disagreement between security experts and civil libertarians on the extent of the government’s surveillance authority still needs to be settled, which has caused a political rift.
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To combat foreign terrorism and contain threats from China and Iran, FBI Director Christopher Wray has urged Congress to renew the authorities. Many MPs from all parties agree with him that allowing the government to fall into disarray would be a “form of unilateral disarmament.”
However, in a peculiar pairing, conservative Republicans and progressive Democrats are calling for modifications to the legislation, such as additional privacy safeguards requiring law enforcement to obtain a warrant before searching for gathered information on Americans and foreign nationals.
Before adjourning for the holidays, lawmakers were unable to iron out some differences over a complete extension, so they postponed reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration until March 8.
Additionally, they will need to approve a farm bill, which consists of several nutrition and agriculture-related subsidies and programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme, formerly known as food stamps. Congress bought extra time by extending the present legislation to September of next year, even though it was set to expire last autumn.
Every five years, these reauthorizations are up for renewal; they will require attention in 2024.
“We have an agriculture measure and we have an FAA reauthorization. Right now, we have a continuing resolution that is not sustainable, stated Senator Mike Rounds, R-S.D. “And January is when everything is going to be due. We therefore have a task ahead of us and a finite amount of time to complete it. It will be necessary for us to go through the clutter and complete some tasks quickly.
