GOP leaders had a grand vision for the new Congress: Focus on a bold conservative agenda — not last year’s business and the deadline-driven crises that have long dominated Washington.

So much for that.


Congress left for Thanksgiving without checking anything big off its to-do list during the lame duck, leaving just 10 days to fund the government when they come back in December and likely pushing big items like authorizing force against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants and the confirmation of an attorney general into 2015.

As Republicans take the reins of both chambers of Congress for the first time in nearly a decade, their new agenda will be consumed with leftover business, a reality check for many in the party who had hoped to come out swinging in the new year on tax reform, trade deals, energy legislation and changes to Obamacare.

( Also on POLITICO: The anxities of a GOP majority)

“What happened to clearing the deck?” said incoming Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas. “Democracy’s a messy business.”

Or, as Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) put it this week: “Eventually, the Republican majority is going to be in the pooper-scooper business, cleaning up for all the mistakes made in this deal.”

When Congress returns in December, not only will lawmakers have to figure out the length of a government funding bill , they must decide whether to extend a package of expiring corporate and individual tax breaks and reauthorize a terrorism insurance program. If those items slip into next year, they’ll just be added onto the pile.

The GOP-led Congress will need to avert a steep cut on Medicare reimbursements to physicians by March, which is also the same month that the country is expected to run up against the national debt limit. Congress is waiting until next year to address highway funding that runs out in June. That same month, key national security and surveillance authorities under the PATRIOT Act are set to expire.

( Also on POLITICO: Rise of the Rust Belt Republicans)

On top of all that is the red-hot issue of immigration, a battle bound to reignite next year when Republican leaders have vowed to battle President Barack Obama’s White House administrative action on the issue.

Some of the Republicans’ own members are making their lives more difficult. The conservative Senate Steering Committee, led by Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, sent a letter to all senators Thursday demanding a chance to review any legislation by Dec. 5 that senators want to quickly pass. Otherwise, the group warned, it would “regretfully” block any pending bills and effectively push them into the new Congress when Republicans will have more influence.

“We want to ensure adequate review of all legislation so that we may support final passage in a prompt manner,” said the letter, which was also signed by the likes of Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Ted Cruz of Texas.

( Also on POLITICO: Lack of immigration plan flusters GOP)

In addition, Republicans this week blocked the so-called USA Freedom Act, which would have overhauled surveillance laws and reauthorized key intelligence authorities set to expire in June.

And even as some Democrats were pushing to confirm Loretta Lynch’s nomination to head the Justice Department in their final weeks in control of the chamber, incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell demanded any consideration be postponed until his party took power next year. The White House acquiesced.

Democrats say the GOP has only itself to blame for the laundry list of leftover items.

“It’s always someone else’s fault with them,” said Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for incoming Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “I thought they were big on personal responsibility.”

To prepare for a hefty legislative push, McConnell released the Senate’s schedule for next year, showing that the Senate would be in session virtually every full week of 2015 until Easter — a much more aggressive opening schedule than the one Reid has kept in recent years. It may be necessary.

In addition to the Medicare payment issue, as well as transportation funding and the debt ceiling, McConnell has vowed to stick to a regular budget process, including moving on a budget resolution by April and appropriations bills soon after that.

“During that first six months, it seems to me those are the five most predictable hurdles that test our new majority,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of his party’s leadership team. “Those are the five hurdles that I see that either we are going to kick them over, or we are going to figure out how to clear them between now and the Fourth of July.”

But those are hardly all the challenges at the beginning of the year. Obama’s announcement last week to shield 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation has enraged Republicans, who now warn that it could scuttle efforts next month to pass a long-term spending bill through September. Now, it appears, a short-term spending measure until mid-February seems an increasingly likely option, allowing newly empowered Republicans to use the power of the purse to tie Obama’s hands on immigration and engage in a contentious fiscal fight right off the bat.

On Friday, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said she and her House GOP counterpart, Hal Rogers of Kentucky, were making “steady progress” on an omnibus package since there was little way to stop the agency enforcing Obama’s executive action through the regular appropriations process. And some influential Senate Republicans, like Appropriations Committee ranking member Richard Shelby of Alabama and Rob Portman of Ohio, still prefer a long-term spending bill into next September.

“I would like to clear the deck. I always like to finish this year’s business,” Shelby said. “I like the omnibus. I like regular order. You know that. But that’ll be up to our leadership and events that dictate things.”

Beyond the spending fight, Republicans sense that Reid is attempting to make their lives more difficult in the new year. They point to the Democrats’ refusal this week to advance the Keystone XL oil pipeline legislation, something that McConnell has promised to make a top priority in the new Congress.

We’re still reacting to what the Democrats do. They’ve got ball control. - John Thune

“We’re still reacting to what the Democrats do. They’ve got ball control,” said John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Senate Republican. “We don’t control what Sen. Reid puts on the floor. He doesn’t seem inclined to do many of the things that we would like to see get done.”

Still, Republicans believe they can fast-track some of the items on their agenda — like piecemeal changes to Obamacare, potentially repealing the medical device tax — through the budget reconciliation process next year. But they can do that only if they keep their ideologically diverse caucus of likely 54 Republicans mostly united and win backing from the conservative House — not to mention avoid the presidential veto pen.

A number of incoming GOP committee chairmen prefer that Democrats punt in order to give Republicans party more power to shape legislation in the next Congress. But not every Democrat is relenting.

Even though both parties expect votes next year over an authorization of military force in the war against ISIL, New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations committee, isn’t ready to throw in the towel for 2014. “I’m not willing to say that it’s over.”

But the future Republican leader of the panel, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, said that ship has sailed into 2015, blaming the White House for not seriously engaging with him on the critical task as he emerged from a classified briefing this week.

“They are not really ready to ask for an AUMF. Because they don’t really know what to do,” he said. “I talk to them all the time. It’s never come up. Never. Never. Talked to John Kerry multiple times. The AUMF does not come up.”

When Congress returns from its Thanksgiving break, there will be plenty of work to finish up. Not only does government funding expire on Dec. 11, so do a law training and equipping moderate Syrian rebels and a moratorium on taxing Internet usage. A defense policy bill that has passed every year for the past half-century is waiting in the wings.

That busy calendar gives lawmakers plenty to do in the handful of legislative days left in the lame duck session — and ensures that there’s going to be even more for the new Republican Congress to handle come 2015.

“There’s still a couple of vehicles leaving the station that might enable us to get some of these things,” Thune said. “If it ends up all being punted to next year, I guess we’ll have a very busy schedule.”