Congress returns to Washington in the first full week of the year with a pile of unfinished business on its plate and decisions to make on U.S. involvement in the regime change President Trump has started in Venezuela.
First in mind for congressional leaders, before the military operation early Saturday that captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife, was avoiding another government shutdown.
That task remains urgent given lawmakers’ self-imposed Jan. 30 deadline to pass the nine annual appropriations bills they have yet to enact for fiscal year 2026, which began Oct. 1.
This week, the appropriations bills will likely take a back seat to lawmakers’ efforts to determine what happens next in Venezuela. Mr. Trump announced Saturday that the U.S. would “run” the country until a proper transition to a new government can be made.
“As far as I know, we don’t have a single person on the ground in Venezuela right now. So what it means for us to be running this, I don’t know,” Rep. James Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Mr. Himes said the operation to remove Mr. Maduro is similar to U.S. operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. “We’re caught up in this euphoria of how amazing we are at taking down leaders” without a long-term strategy, he said.
“We don’t want to not have a plan for the next day,” he said.
Lawmakers are expected to ask about details of that plan this week during briefings from the Trump administration.
Senate Democrats plan to force a vote on a war powers resolution directing the president to terminate the use of U.S. armed forces for hostilities against Venezuela unless authorized by Congress.
“One of the reasons the Founding Fathers gave the ability to declare war to the Congress is so there would be debate, discussion, different points of view before something so momentous happens,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said Saturday. He accused the Trump administration of “ripping up that part of the Constitution.”
Senate Democrats forced a vote in early November on a similar war powers resolution amid reports that the Trump administration was planning for ground strikes within Venezuela.
That resolution failed on a 49-51 vote, with only two Republicans, Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joining Democrats in support.
Some other Republicans have begun to suggest that Congress will need to take a stronger role as the Venezuela situation unfolds, but it’s unclear whether the war powers resolution will have enough support to pass.
Sen. Susan M. Collins, Maine Republican and Appropriations Committee chair, said the Venezuela mission “appears to have been a limited scope operation” to apprehend an international criminal. Still, she said Congress should have been informed about the plan sooner “and needs to be involved as this situation evolves.”
The focus on Venezuela could make it more difficult for Congress to tackle its unfinished business from last year.
Lawmakers left Washington for the holidays in December, concerned about the time crunch for completing the already delayed annual appropriations process, especially after a five-bill spending package stalled in the Senate.
“That just means we’ll have to push that much harder when we get back,” said Senate Appropriations Committee member John Hoeven, North Dakota Republican. “But you know the nature of this place; we always use all the time available.”
The November deal to end the shutdown included full-year funding for three of the 12 annual spending bills.
The remaining nine are operating on stopgap funding that will expire Jan. 30.
The House and Senate plan to try to pass some of those bills as soon as this week, but nothing is definitively scheduled as spending negotiations continue.
Competing congressional health care proposals to help Americans struggling with rising costs also sputtered before the holidays.
Lawmakers will give it another shot this month, despite missing the key deadline driving the talks: the Dec. 31 expiration of Democrats’ COVID pandemic expansion of Obamacare subsidies, also known as Affordable Care Act premium tax credits.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, said he sees a potential path to a bipartisan deal that could temporarily extend the subsidies, but “it’ll be a heavy lift.”
The House may pass a bill this week that would temporarily extend the enhanced Obamacare subsidies for three years without changes. Republican leaders oppose the measure, but a successful discharge petition is forcing them to hold a vote.
Four Republicans joined all Democrats in signing the discharge petition because they were frustrated that House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, wouldn’t give them a vote on one of several bipartisan proposals to temporarily extend the Obamacare subsidies with an income cap and fraud guardrails.
If those four Republicans vote with the Democrats, they will have the majority needed to pass the bill.
“We had a far more conservative alternative … but that was not given a floor vote for whatever reason, so we were left with no other option but to send this vehicle,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, one of the Republicans who signed the Democrats’ discharge petition, said on “Fox News Sunday” last month.
Mr. Fitzpatrick called the bill a “vehicle” because the Senate will not pass it as is — the chamber already has voted down a three-year extension of the subsidies — but may amend it with a bipartisan deal if one comes together.
Ms. Collins and Sen. Bernie Moreno, Ohio Republican, have been leading bipartisan negotiations with Democrats in an effort to find a potential compromise that eluded lawmakers last month.
“With the new year underway, 24 million Americans are facing the reality of higher health insurance premiums as a result of the ACA tax credit expiring,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire Democrat, said on social media. “Congress can still take action to provide relief. I’m calling on my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get this done.”
Ms. Shaheen was one of eight Democrats who voted in November to end the record 43-day government shutdown that Democrats had started in hopes of securing an extension of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies.
In exchange, Republican leaders promised them a vote on a health care bill of their choosing.
Democrats put up their proposal for a three-year extension of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies. Four Republicans joined them in voting to advance the measure, but it fell short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
A Republican alternative to redirect the government aid into tax-exempt health savings accounts that consumers can use to pay for deductibles, co-pays and other out-of-pocket health care expenses, but not premiums, also fell short.
The senators negotiating a bipartisan deal are seeking a compromise between the two partisan proposals.
Lawmakers have said they expect the health care discussions to remain separate from government funding negotiations.
Mr. Schumer said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that his party will not force another shutdown over the issue.
“No, there are two separate tracks here,” he said. “Democrats want to fund the appropriations, the spending bills, all the way through 2026. We want to work in a bicameral, bipartisan way to do it. And the good news is our Republican appropriators are working with us, and we’re making good progress in that regard.”
