Immigration? Roads? Don't expect much action from Congress before the 2018 midterms

Eliza Collins | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – There are just over seven months before lawmakers face the voters in the November midterm elections, but don’t expect much legislating to get done on Capitol Hill in that time period.

In mid-March, Congress passed a $1.3 trillion spending bill funding the government through Sept. 30, and then lawmakers went home for a two-week spring break. When they return next week, expect plenty of squabbling over a number of high-profile items that remain unresolved, but actually passing much of it is unlikely — even if there is bipartisan support.

All House members and one-third of the Senate are up for re-election in November. Members of both parties face tough races, and for some that starts with primary challenges from members of their own party. If history is any indication, congressional leadership in both parties will want to protect their vulnerable members and won't push them to take difficult votes over the remainder of the session. Neither side will want to give a political victory to the other.

With a few exceptions, the performance of Congress over the past five midterm election lead-ups — from the Easter break to Election Day in 2014, 2010, 2006, 2002 and 1998 — backs up the common belief that nothing much is accomplished during that dead-zone period.

In 2014, 84 laws were enacted from after Easter to before the election. The only one of note was the Veterans Choice Act. And it was a bipartisan bill that allowed veterans to get treated at non-Veterans Health Administration facilities if they had been subjected to long waits.

In 2010, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform legislation passed during this period, but that was a time when the Democrats controlled the Senate and House by wide margins, and that bill passed on mostly party lines.

In 2006, nothing of lasting impact passed during the period, nor did anything during a similar period of 1998.

Post-Easter to Election Day in 2002 was unique for two reasons: It came in the shadow of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the tumultuous 2000 presidential race. Legislation to reform the voting process and a resolution in support of the use of force in Iraq both became laws during that period.

The House, where Republicans have a large enough majority to pass legislation, may try to push through some GOP-only bills — such as a balanced-budget amendment — so they can rally their base back home. But members know most of these bills will never make it through the Senate, where there is a 60-vote requirement for most legislation. Republicans have a narrow 51-49 margin in the Senate, and the upper chamber tends to be more moderate than the House.

Though more than half a year remains before the midterm elections, members will start traveling home more frequently to campaign. There are less than 75 scheduled days left when both chambers of Congress will be in session from April to Nov. 6.

Here are some major pieces of legislation that have been discussed but are unlikely to move, and a couple that just might — at least temporarily:

Legal protections for DACA recipients

There are just under 700,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and received protections from deportation under an Obama-era order, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. President Trump reversed that order in the fall and gave Congress six months to come up with a permanent solution.

There is bipartisan support for some form of legal protections for at least a fraction of the DREAMers, undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. But how far the protections go, how many people are covered and what immigration enforcement provisions are passed in return is all up for debate. Trump had said he would support a path to citizenship for 1.8 million DREAMers, but in exchange he wanted $25 billion for a wall along the southern border and drastic cuts to legal immigration. That offer was considered too extreme by nearly all Democrats and even some Republicans. On Sunday, the president tweeted that a DACA deal was dead and called for the Senate to change its rules to be able to pass immigration laws along party lines, something Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said he has no plans to do.

Congress remains frozen on the question, but a Supreme Court ruling last month took away some of the urgency. The court declined to fast-track the case, ensuring protections will last at least through the fall.

Obamacare stabilization

Members from both parties support efforts to reinstate the government subsidies paid to health insurers that Trump ended this fall. The subsidies helped insurance companies reduce out-of-pocket costs for low- and middle-income consumers. Without them, insurance companies could raise premiums on other people to help offset the loss.

Legislation has been introduced that reinstates the subsidies and provides funding to help states set up high-risk insurance pools to provide coverage for people with high medical costs. That proposal almost made it into the $1.3 trillion spending bill that passed before Congress broke for Easter recess, but language that banned Medicaid funding from being used for abortions stopped Democrats from backing it, and fiscal conservatives refused to spend more money on what they said amounted to an insurance bailout.

Fixing roads and bridges

Trump has vowed to fix the nation’s crumbling roads and bridges and has proposed a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan for the next decade, with the $200 billion federal share of that money shifted from unspecified government agencies. But Trump’s approach is light on details — he wants Congress to hash those out. Though there is bipartisan support for something to be done with infrastructure — and the spending bill authorized a boost in infrastructure spending across the country — it is unlikely that a large package will move through Congress over the next year. Most Democrats are unlikely to want to give the president a win on a signature campaign promise, and Republicans are uncomfortable spending so much money.

Protecting the Russia investigation

Recent Twitter attacks by Trump against special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation have renewed calls for Congress to pass legislation to protect the inquiry, which is looking at possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin and possible obstruction of justice by the president.

Two bipartisan bills to protect Mueller were introduced in the Senate last August, a time when Trump was expressing his anger about the investigation and Congress was leaving on a month-long summer recess. Identical bills were later introduced in the House.

Republican leaders have expressed little interest in holding votes on bills that undoubtedly would anger Trump, even though most say it would be a mistake for the president to fire Mueller. But Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware called Tuesday for Trump to let Mueller finish his job.

A couple of things that could happen — in the short term:

Government funding

The spending bill Trump signed March 23 keeps the government funded through the end of September. In theory, Congress would pass a series of appropriations bills that fund the government through the following fiscal year before Oct. 1. But for more than 20 years, Congress has not passed more than one-third of its appropriations bills on time, according to the Pew Research Center.

Instead, lawmakers rely on short-term spending bills to keep funding at current levels while they fight about the details. This fiscal year, it took Congress until March to finally pass a spending bill — and even then it wasn’t the individual appropriations bills but a 2,000-plus page piece of legislation dropped hours before members voted on it.

If Congress is unable to agree on a short-term spending bill, also called a continuing resolution, the government goes into a partial shutdown. Lawmakers in both parties are aware of the optics of a government shutdown right before voters head to the polls, but if history is any indication, it’s unlikely they’ll get it together to pass their full spending bill on time. Keep an eye out for a short-term spending bill that will keep the lights on through, at least the election.

Flood insurance renewal

The National Flood Insurance Program, run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was due to expire on Oct. 1 last year but has remained in business because of extensions. The latest extension — contained in the $1.3 trillion federal spending bill Trump signed March 23 — runs out on July 31. It isn’t clear what will happen to the program, but if Congress can’t agree on how to renew or extend it before the end of July, a lapse could disrupt many home sales in flood-prone areas because the Federal Emergency Management Agency won’t be able to issue new policies.

Congress has been divided about what to do about the flood program in the long term, largely because some solutions could increase rates so much that homeowners would face the possibility of going uninsured or abandoning their homes. Of the roughly 5 million flood insurance policies in effect, nearly 60% are in just five states — Florida, Texas, Louisiana, California and New Jersey — that have both Democrats and Republicans in power in Washington.

Contributing: Bill Theobald, Herbert Jackson, Erin Kelly, Michael Collins, Bart Jansen