The decision to advance a narrowly focused budget reconciliation bill to fund immigration enforcement operations later this month has sparked a battle among Senate Republicans over whether to pass a third reconciliation bill before the election to enact other elements of President Trump’s agenda before the midterm election.
Some Republican senators want to advance a third budget reconciliation package this summer to allocate more money for the Department of Defense, but senior GOP colleagues on the Senate Appropriations Committee are slamming the brakes on the idea. They are worried it may further diminish their power and the regular appropriations process.
There’s also a push by some conservatives, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), to enact new tax cuts, or to extend the working-class Trump tax cuts that are due to soon expire.
But that effort is meeting resistance from Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), who is warning colleagues it could force Republicans to relitigate all of the tax cuts and spending cuts enacted in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
As a result, GOP senators are growing increasingly pessimistic about achieving any partisan legislative accomplishments after they enact legislation to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol through 2029.
Republican senators say there’s growing opposition within their conference to attempting a third budget reconciliation bill, especially among members of the Senate Appropriations panel, who believe it’s “our job,” in the words of one lawmaker, to pass funding for the Pentagon under regular order.
Passing appropriations bills under regular order would mean getting Democrats to support a supplemental defense appropriations package or a beefed-up, full-year defense appropriations bill.
Pessimism that Republicans will lose control of the House after this fall’s elections is a big factor in the calculations, one senator acknowledged.
“There are some who are saying, ‘Look, we know the House is going to flip and so this is basically our last opportunity to really do anything, and so we’ve got to go for the gold ring. We’ve got to put everything that we want into a reconciliation bill because we’re not going to be legislating anymore,’” said a GOP senator who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the debate within the Senate Republican Conference over moving a third reconciliation package.
But the lawmaker said there is a group of GOP colleagues who are pushing back on the argument that Republicans need to rely on budget reconciliation to get defense funding and other legislative priorities around Democratic filibusters.
“I refuse to accept that,” the senator said, pushing back on the claim that Republicans need to pass a third reconciliation package to fund military priorities or other GOP agenda items before the election.
A second Republican senator confirmed “there is strong opposition” to moving a third reconciliation bill within the Senate Republican Conference, especially among appropriators who fear it would undermine efforts to work on a bipartisan basis to pass regular appropriations bills.
The GOP senator argued that repeatedly relying on budget reconciliation to circumvent Democratic filibusters has undermined the Senate’s tradition of working on a bipartisan basis to get things done.
And while some Republicans are skeptical about working with Democrats on major legislation while Trump is president, others don’t want to give up on bipartisanship just yet.
Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) warned that repeated use of budget reconciliation to shut out the minority party weakens Senate tradition and could augur the end of the filibuster, which requires the parties to work together to pass legislation.
“We tend to evolve toward the most recent precedent, and this use of reconciliation repeatedly to avoid a bipartisan compromise moves us in the wrong direction,” Durbin said.
GOP senators say Thune promised colleagues that leadership would be open to moving a third budget reconciliation package later this year as part of an effort to keep the pending reconciliation bill narrowly focused on funding ICE and Border Patrol.
Some Republicans, notably Cruz, called for bulking up the package to include top Republican economic priorities that the party could highlight ahead of the midterm election.
But Thune feared that expanding the scope of the reconciliation bill would delay its passage through Congress by weeks or months — something he didn’t want to risk after House Republicans refused to approve a bill funding most of the Department of Homeland Security until they saw the Senate make significant progress toward passing a budget vehicle to fund immigration enforcement through 2029.
But now that most of the Department of Homeland Security is funded through September and a budget reconciliation package funding ICE and Border Patrol has already been drafted in the Senate, there are growing questions over whether GOP leaders will attempt to move a third reconciliation package to pay for the military conflict with Iran or enact new tax cuts.
“Somebody started this stuff about there’s going to be a third reconciliation bill and my response to that is: Dreamweaver. I don’t know what year they’re talking about, but it’s not happening before the midterm elections,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said.
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said he would love to pass a third reconciliation package to enact more of Trump’s priorities, but he said it’s “hard to see” how that could happen.
“I do want that and I’d love to take it on. Right now, it’s hard to see it,” he said.
Asked about the appropriators’ opposition to moving another reconciliation package, Cramer replied: “I’m sure that’s true.”
Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told The Hill that he’s open to moving a third budget reconciliation package focused on defense spending but declined to say what else he’d like to include.
“We’ll talk about it later,” he said.
But pulling together enough Republican votes to fund the ongoing military conflict with Iran, which polls show has little support from the American public, could be a heavy lift.
“If it’s like $200 billion more and all this stuff for the war supplemental, I’m not going to” support it, said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has voted repeatedly for resolutions under the 1973 War Powers Act to direct Trump to withdraw troops from hostilities with Iran.