Before getting into the specific votes that the House took (and failed to take) this week, I want to share the broader context of the moment.

Congress has the power and the obligation to direct federal spending.  The House Ways and Means committee deals with the revenue side (i.e., taxes) and the House Appropriations Committee deals with the spending side.  The appropriations process is designed to work as follows: The Appropriations Committee is to write twelve different bills each year that deal with funding various government functions, and that fund government for the fiscal year, which ends on September 30.  The Senate does the same, and then the House and the Senate confer and resolve their differences, pass the final bills, and send them to the President.  I’m simplifying and skipping over a lot of things here (including how I participate in the process), but you can learn more about the appropriations process at this link.  

To date, the full House has not considered any of the twelve appropriations bills it needs to consider.  Typically, consideration of these bills takes a long time on the floor, members propose a lot of amendments to each one, and then the House and Senate have a lot of differences to work out.  The process, in the best of circumstances, takes several weeks once the bills have passed out of the appropriations and come to the full house for a vote on the floor.  And the process does not always work this way.  For many reasons, including how time-consuming the bills can be, the process is modified, bills are put together in packages, and short-term extensions of time (continuing resolutions to keep funding the government at current levels) are agreed to.

That’s where we are.  As I explained last week, the general consensus is that the full process cannot be completed by next Saturday (September 30) and we need to pass a short-term continuing resolution (CR) to continue funding for the government at current levels to keep it open and functioning for the several more weeks it will take to continue the work.  (This isn’t to say that nothing has been done – the Appropriations Committee has done its work and passed many of the bills out of the various subcommittees.  But there is still much work to do.  The bills in the House and the Senate are very different – starting with the overall spending amounts and continuing through the details of issues addressed.)  But not everyone agrees, and that drove the activities in the House this week.

What comes to the House for consideration is determined by the House Republicans, who are in the majority this 118th Congress.  As I report each week, some bipartisan bills come to the floor directly and can pass the House with a 2/3 majority vote—these are bills that we vote on “under suspension of the rules.”  For all other bills, the House Rules Committee proposed the rules for debate, setting out how debate will proceed on each bill, including how much time will be allowed for debate, whether and which amendments can be offered, and other procedural matters.  Because the majority party controls the House floor, chooses which bills come to the floor for a vote, and the terms of debate and amendments—and because generally the minority party disagrees with the bills and procedure set out—these votes are typically party-line votes.  If the rule does not pass, the bills included in it cannot be brought to the floor for a vote.

That brings us to this week.  House Republicans notified members that we would vote on a short-term Continuing Resolution (to fund the government, at reduced levels and with major policy changes), the appropriations bill for the Department of Defense, and several other matters.

What the House Did Do:

On Tuesday, the House voted to send the House-passed version of the FY 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to conference with the Senate.  Now, appointed conferees from both chambers will meet to iron out the differences between the House and Senate versions to compile a final bill (which must pass both chambers again before it is sent to the President’s desk for signature).  

And the House did vote on several suspension bills this week, which passed on a bipartisan basis, including:

• the Isakson-Roe Education Oversight Expansion Act, H.R. 3981, to strengthen the VA’s oversight capacity over veteran-serving educational institutions, as well as protect and restore education benefits to defrauded veterans;
• the Veterans Benefits Improvement Act of 2023, H.R. 1530, to improve access to the VA benefit claims process, particularly for disabled veterans;
• a bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to strengthen benefits for children of Vietnam veterans born with spina bifida, and for other purposes, S.112;
• the Native American Child Protection Act, H.R. 663, to reauthorize and revise programs to ensure Tribes have the tools they need to address instances of family violence and child abuse involving Native American children and families; and
• a bill to designate the clinic of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Gallup, New Mexico as the Hiroshi “Hershey” Miyamura VA Clinic, S.475, to commemorate the service of Hiroshi “Hershey” Miyamura, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions in the Korean War. 

What the House Did Not Do:

The House neither voted on nor debated the Republican Continuing Resolution or the appropriations bill for the Department of Defense.  In short, it did nothing to address the potential lapse in congressional appropriations and the government shutdown that would occur as a result.

On Tuesday and again on Thursday, the House failed to pass the rule to begin debate on the appropriations bill for the Department of Defense.  (And to put it in context, the House has failed to pass a rule only eleven times since 1995—two of them in the last week.)  The Speaker never brought up the rule on the Continuing Resolution, presumably because he did not have the votes to pass it.  It was a week of uncertainty and changing expectations, as certain extreme House members in the Republican conference insisted on a long list of demands, most of which I do not believe practically can be or substantively should be accommodated.

Where does that leave us?  Facing a government shutdown that will hurt Americans.  It will hurt the economy.  It will hurt people who rely on government services–and that means all of us. 

House Democrats and Senate Democrats and Republicans are willing to work together to keep the government open.  The Senate is advancing a Continuing Resolution that I hope it will send to the House next week.  We are trying to do everything we can to avoid a shutdown.  Smaller groups of House Republicans and Democrats are trying to work together and to put together alternative proposals and strategies to keep things moving forward.  But as of today, House Republican leaders are not trying to work with House Democrats to build consensus on a path forward. 

I know this is what frustrates so many of us about government – and that’s why I am sorry to have to relay this report.  But it is what is happening in Washington this week.

In other news this week, I joined my colleagues as an original co-sponsor of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which was reintroduced this week in this Congress as H.R. 14.  This legislation restores the full protections of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 and restores federal oversight for states with a recent history of voter discrimination.  Congress has the responsibility to protect voters’ access to the ballot box and passing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is critical to fulfilling that responsibility.  Voting is the very foundation of our democracy.  It is the act from which everything else flows.  We must ensure that all eligible American voters can have their voices heard at the ballot box.  Unfortunately, we have seen an increasing assault on the ability to exercise this right—this responsibility of citizenship—in Texas and across the country.  I am proud to work with leaders in Congress as an original co-sponsor to advance this vital legislation. 

H.R. 14 restores the full promise of the VRA by:

• establishing a targeted process for reviewing voting changes based on measures that have historically been used to discriminate against voters;
• amending Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to address the Supreme Court’s decision in Brnovich v. DNC, which eliminated the heightened standard for challenging voter discrimination;
• ensuring federal courts immediately halt questionable voting practices until a final ruling is made, recognizing that when voting rights are at stake, prohibiting a discriminatory practice after the election has concluded is too late to protect voters' rights;
• giving the Attorney General authority to request that federal observers be present anywhere in the country where discriminatory voting practices pose a serious threat;
• increasing transparency by requiring reasonable public notice for voting changes;
• eliminating arbitrary barriers that limit voters’ ability to obtain injunctive relief for voting rights violations in the lead up to an election; and
• establishing a grant program for small jurisdictions to help them comply with the bill’s various notice requirements.

I also co-sponsored several other pieces of legislation on issues important to our community, including the Recognizing Gun Violence as a Public Health Emergency Act (H.R. 5010), which directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to coordinate with the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to produce an annual report on gun violence, its public health effects, and federal government actions taken in response. 

And I joined my colleagues in sending several letters this week addressing the must-pass legislation Congress is currently considering:

• a letter to Speaker Kevin McCarthy urging that government funding bills reflect the bipartisan debt ceiling agreement that Congress passed earlier this year in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which was signed into law in May, and urging Speaker McCarthy to take swift action to avert a government shutdown by passing bipartisan legislation;
• a letter to House Appropriations Committee leaders supporting responsible appropriations legislation that adequately funds government programs and eliminates harmful provisions that would ban the abortion pill, block efforts to reduce gun violence, and enable discrimination against LGBTQI+ individuals;
• a letter to members of Senate and House Armed Services leadership urging the removal of anti-LGBTQI+ measures from the final version of the FY2024 National Defense Authorization Act, the annual bill that funds our military;
• a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin asking the Department of Defense to provide additional clarification to its July 2022 PFAS cleanup schedule and cost estimate report and to provide an update on the implementation of the new interim cleanup actions recently initiated; and
• a letter to Commerce Secretary Raimondo opposing the Florida Tomato Exchange’s request that the Department of Commerce terminate the 2019 Tomatoes Suspension Agreement and implement anti-dumping tariffs – matters of real importance to Texans and Texas farmers.

The Energy & Commerce Committee had a busy week, with opportunities for members not on the Committee to highlight their priorities and subcommittee hearings in both the Energy Subcommittee and the Communications & Technology Subcommittee.  On Wednesday, the Energy Subcommittee met to discuss the role of hydropower in our energy system.  Both the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act included hydropower incentives.  On Thursday, the Communications & Technology Subcommittee discussed how to bring high-speed, reliable, and affordable internet to all households. 

I was glad to have a little time in the office this week to meet with people from our area to talk about a variety of issues, from the need for immigration reform, to offshore carbon capture and energy matters, to issues affecting NASA’s Johnson Space Center, and much more.  Here are a few snapshots of some of this week’s Houstonians on the Hill from the Houston Chapter of Associated General Contractors of America, the International Association of Drilling Contractors and energy companies, and Rice University. 

We are looking ahead to next weekend and the potential government shutdown.  While I will continue to work to avoid one, our district team and I have also been talking to federal agencies in Houston and in Washington about how the shutdown could affect TX-07.  We have compiled a list of frequently asked questions about what you might expect and have created an FAQ page on my website.  One thing that is clear is that each time the government shuts down is different, and we will keep updating the website as we know more.  To view this page, click here.

I want to hear from you on this critical issue.  Are you worried about what a government shutdown might mean for you and your family?  Let me know by responding to this short survey. 

As always, I am proud to represent you and I am here to help you.  Please call my office at (713) 353-8680 or (202) 225-2571 or email here at any time to ask for assistance or share your thoughts.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,