House to start summer recess early as Republicans struggle to pass annual spending bills

The House canceled votes for the final week of July, sending lawmakers home a week early for its annual August recess after GOP leaders failed to pass all 12 of their must-pass spending bills due to intraparty disagreement.

House leaders announced they would nix next week’s votes in an announcement Wednesday, planning to send lawmakers home after business concludes Thursday. That means lawmakers will go home to their districts for six weeks before returning on Sept. 9, when they’ll have just three weeks to pass some sort of spending bill to keep the government open before fiscal 2024 ends .

The decision comes after the House has struggled to pass its remaining appropriations bills despite unveiling an ambitious schedule earlier this year that sought to advance all 12 by the end of July.

However, lawmakers have only managed to pass four so far, with the others either failing on the floor or being pulled from consideration because of a lack of support from House Republicans.

The House will continue voting on amendments and two of its spending bills funding the departments of Interior and Energy before adjourning Thursday. That schedule has left some lawmakers upset with the lack of progress, especially as it becomes increasingly likely Congress will drop plans to pass a budget and will instead punt the deadline until past the November election.

“[We’re] trying to pass 12 separate Republican appropriation bills, that the Democrat-controlled Senate will NEVER vote on. For what? Messaging?” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said in a post on X. “When the reality that we ALL know is that we will be forced to vote on a CR by Sept 30th which is the government funding deadline. But for some reason that’s not being discussed even though we all know it.”

The ambitious timeline to pass all 12 appropriations bills before Aug. 1 largely served as a test of GOP leadership to pass government funding bills despite not being able to do so last year until six months into fiscal 2024.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

However, leadership ran into many of the same problems as last year: Intraparty disagreement over controversial policy proposals tucked into the spending bills. Those policies, such as a ban on mail-delivery abortion pills and cuts to Democrats’ signature climate bill, have split GOP lawmakers, particularly those seeking reelection in competitive districts.

Even if the House did manage to pass all of its appropriations bills before the annual recess, it’s not clear whether the Senate would have acted with such haste. The Senate has yet to pass any of its spending bills as Democratic leaders and the White House have indicated they would delay the process until after the November election when it’s more clear who will be president in 2025 and which party will be in control of the upper chamber.