Lawmakers in both the House and Senate find themselves in a critical period as they work to finalize the necessary appropriations to fund the government. With six of the required 12 appropriations bills already approved, progress is evident, but challenges remain.

Recently, the House advanced a two-bill package, often referred to as a “minibus,” aimed at securing funding for the State Department and the Treasury Department. The Senate is set to address this minibus once they return from their recess, marking an essential step in the legislative process.

However, four appropriations bills are still pending in the House, with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill proving particularly contentious. The DHS bill has become a flashpoint in negotiations, highlighting significant partisan divides.

As of Monday afternoon, the text for these remaining four bills had yet to be released by appropriators, adding to the urgency of the situation. Meanwhile, Democrats in both chambers are ramping up their efforts to reform U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This push comes in response to a recent incident where an ICE officer fatally shot an unarmed woman in Minneapolis.

In light of this, Democrats are vowing to oppose the DHS appropriations bill unless it incorporates stricter oversight measures and conduct guidelines for ICE officers, underscoring the need for accountability and reform within the agency.

It’s unclear whether both parties can reach an agreement on the DHS bill before the Jan. 30 deadline to prevent a partial government shutdown.

If they don’t, one option they have is to pass a stopgap measure, known as a continuing resolution, that would temporarily fund the department at existing levels until they strike a deal.

The clock is tight for both chambers, with the Senate in recess this week and the House set to be out next week. 

What else you can expect this week:

• Paris Hilton makes an appearance: Celebrity Paris Hilton will join lawmakers for a press conference Thursday to advocate for the passage of a bill allowing victims of nonconsensual deepfake pornography to sue those who produce and distribute such content.
• Battle over stock trading ban intensifies: House Democrats plan on introducing a discharge petition to force a vote on a bill that would prohibit lawmakers, the president, the vice president and their immediate families from owning, buying or selling individual stocks. House Republicans are expected to advance their own stock trading bill.
• Jack Smith to publicly testify: Former special counsel Jack Smith will publicly testify Thursday, the first time the public will hear directly from the prosecutor about his investigations of President Trump. 
• Democrats to call up war powers resolution: Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) plans on calling up his war powers resolution to the floor. The resolution, which ripens Thursday, would block the Trump administration from engaging in further hostilities “within or against Venezuela” without congressional authorization.
• Oversight to take up Clinton contempt resolutions: The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will move to hold former President Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress over their refusal to appear for scheduled depositions last week. 

Funding deadline looms as shutdown threat grows

House lawmakers have just four legislative days this week to pass all four remaining appropriations bills before they leave for recess — and they’ve left the toughest ones for last.

Three of the remaining four bills present opportunities for Democrats to flex their muscles in an attempt to use government funding to rein in President Trump on immigration, foreign policy and health care.

The DHS bill shaping up to be the most difficult as the situation in Minneapolis remains tense and the administration doubles down on its aggressive immigration enforcement. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) last week added his voice to those pointing to the funding bill as a key leverage point.

Also in the middle of the fray is the bill to fund the Department of Health and Human Services, as the impasse over Affordable Care Act subsidies roils members.

The health care issue is what precipitated last year’s 43-day government shutdown, the longest in history. And several House Democrats have said they would want their Senate colleagues to withhold their support for spending bills if the ObamaCare issue isn’t resolved by the end of January, even if it results in another shutdown.

Though the House passed a three-year extension of the subsidies earlier this month, the Senate has refused to take that bill up. Senators are in talks to come up with a compromise on the subsidies that would include reforms, but any subsidy package that passes the upper chamber would need to be approved by the House again.

Some Democrats are also floating the idea of holding back support for the Pentagon spending bill unless it takes steps to mitigate Trump’s threats on Venezuela and Greenland.

The House will leave for a recess at the end of the week, at which point the Senate would need to take up the bills before the end of the month.

Failure to pass them — or stopgap bills to allow more time for negotiations — could result in a partial government shutdown, though with large swaths of the government already funded, the effects would be far more limited than what the public experienced last year.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said last week that Congress was “on track” to fund the rest of the government by Jan. 30. 

House lawmakers advocate for passage of deepfake porn bill

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Laurel Lee (R-Fla.), Hilton and other advocates will hold a press conference Thursday to urge Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to put a bill dubbed the “Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits Act” on the House floor. 

The bill, which would give victims a civil right of action to sue over deepfake pornography, passed the Senate last week. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a co-sponsor of the bill, had urged the House to take up the legislation.

“Imagine losing control over your own likeness and identity. Imagine how powerless victims feel when they cannot remove illicit content, cannot prevent it from being reproduced repeatedly, and cannot prevent new images from being created. The consequences can be profound. Victims may endure threats to their employment, education, or reputation, or suffer additional criminal activity such as extortion and stalking,” he said in a statement.

Johnson told reporters last week that he’s in favor of the bill. 

“We’ve got to find the vote tally, but that should be a big bipartisan concern. We need to protect children online, and we need to stop these abuses. It’s terrible. It’s horrible,” he said. 

Democrats bash GOP stock trading bill 

The fight over a stock trading ban is nearing a showdown in both chambers.

House Democrats plan to introduce a discharge petition on Rep. Seth Magaziner’s (D-R.I.) bill prohibiting stock trading by members of Congress, the president, the vice president and their immediate families. The petition would need 218 signatures to move forward.

Democrats had bashed a GOP stock trading bill from House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) that would allow members of Congress, their spouses and dependent children to retain stocks they already own, but prevent them from buying new ones. The House Administration Committee advanced that bill last week.

“I’m very disappointed by the bill. I think that it doesn’t really fix the problem. Members will still be allowed to own stocks while we’re voting on issues having to do with those same companies. And members would also be allowed to trade stocks in a lot of ways under the Republican bill. So I’m disappointed in it,” Magaziner said.

House GOP leaders, however, are moving quickly to bring Steil’s bill to the floor. 

In the upper chamber, Sens. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) introduced a bipartisan bill that would bar lawmakers and their immediate families from owning or trading individual stocks. The bill is companion legislation to the “Restore Trust in Congress Act” introduced by Magaziner and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) in the House. 

“We will continue to fight tirelessly to make sure it becomes law,” the senators said in a joint statement. 

Jack Smith to testify on Trump investigations

Smith is set to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday about his investigations into Trump and his co-defendants.

Smith had filed two cases against Trump — one focusing on the president’s efforts to block the transfer of power on Jan. 6, 2021, and the other addressing a tranche of 300 records with classified markings found at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla. Both cases were dismissed last year, following Trump winning the election.

Smith sat for a more than seven-hour closed-door deposition with the panel in December, during which he asserted that, if presented with the same facts, he would again choose to bring charges against Trump.

“The decision to bring charges against President Trump was mine, but the basis for those charges rests entirely with President Trump and his actions, as alleged in the indictments returned by grand juries in two different districts,” he said in his opening remarks to the panel, which were obtained by The Hill. 

The latest hearing comes after the panel’s GOP leadership had rebuffed previous requests by Smith for a public hearing.  

House Democrats move on war powers resolution

McGovern, along with Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), reintroduced a bipartisan war powers resolution Jan. 8 that would block further U.S. hostilities “within or against Venezuela” without congressional approval. The resolution becomes ripe Thursday.

An identical resolution by the trio failed to pass the House in December. McGovern said he hopes there’s enough Republican support for it to pass.

“I mean, the question is, you know, whether all the Republicans who have told me that they support the war powers resolution will actually vote that way, or whether they … lack a backbone and are afraid of the president. They won’t do what they believe is right, but we’ll see,” McGovern said. 

The Senate last week defeated a war powers resolution to block Trump from using military force “within or against” Venezuela after two Republicans who had voted to advance the measure reversed their votes and joined their leaders in quashing it. 

The two Republicans — Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) — had come under intense pressure from Trump to flip their votes.

House Oversight Committee moves to hold Clintons in contempt

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said he will hold a meeting Wednesday to “consider two resolutions and accompanying reports” recommending that the House hold both Clintons in contempt of Congress.

The two refused to show up for in-person depositions with the committee last week concerning their personal relationships with Jeffrey Epstein. 

They argued in a joint letter that the subpoenas were legally invalid, and that the decisions Comer has made regarding the Epstein investigation have “prevented progress in discovering the facts about the government’s role.”

But Comer wrote in a statement that the subpoenas issued to the Clintons were not “suggestions.”

“As Ranking Member [Robert] Garcia has stated, ‘defying a congressional subpoena is highly illegal’ and ‘no one is above the law.’ If Democrats refuse to hold the Clintons accountable, they will expose themselves as hypocrites,” Comer said.