119th Congress Begins with New Priorities and Unfinished Business

By Mitch Coppes, Federal Government Affairs Manager, Goodwill Industries International

The 119^th Congress gaveled into session on January 3 as lawmakers returned to Washington with a long list of unfinished legislative business and new policy priorities to tackle in the coming months.

Congress narrowly averted a government shutdown in late December by passing a stopgap continuing resolution to fund the government through March 14. Completing work on Fiscal Year 2025 appropriations before the new deadline will now be a top priority for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD). Though bipartisan legislation to reauthorize both the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and the Older Americans Act (which includes the Senior Community Service Employment Program) was originally attached to the CR package, along with other legislative priorities and extensions of federal programs, those provisions were ultimately stripped out of the bill. As a result, reauthorizing workforce training programs and supports for older workers will continue to be live issues in the new Congress.

President-elect Donald Trump and congressional leaders are plotting out a strategy to use budget reconciliation (a procedure that allows certain legislation to pass with a simple majority in the Senate) to quickly advance many of the new administration’s policy priorities through the House and Senate. This approach may result in Congress taking up one or two massive reconciliation bills that lump together measures on border security and immigration, taxes (including extensions of the expiring provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act), energy policies, and raising or eliminating the federal debt ceiling. Congressional Republicans will likely push for significant cuts to government spending in healthcare, green energy, and social services to pay for the reconciliation legislation.

The Senate will also consider President-elect Trump’s nominees to serve in his cabinet. Former Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR) was selected by Trump to lead the U.S. Department of Labor in the new administration. Elected to the House of Representatives in 2022 to represent Oregon’s 5th congressional district, Chavez-DeRemer served one term in Congress where she was a member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. She is expected appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee for her confirmation hearing in the coming weeks.