Vice President Kamala Harris stands with House Speaker Mike Johnson of Benton, La., as a joint session of Congress convenes to confirm the Electoral College votes, affirming President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, left, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, leads a Senate procession through the Rotunda to the House Chamber for a joint session of congress to confirm the Electoral College votes, at the Capitol on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, in Washington. Walking behind her is Sen. Chuck Grassley R-Iowa.
Vice President Kamala Harris stands with House Speaker Mike Johnson of Benton, La., as a joint session of Congress convenes to confirm the Electoral College votes, affirming President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, left, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, leads a Senate procession through the Rotunda to the House Chamber for a joint session of congress to confirm the Electoral College votes, at the Capitol on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, in Washington. Walking behind her is Sen. Chuck Grassley R-Iowa.
WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson soon will face his first big test in helping fulfill many of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promises.
Johnson, a Republican from north Louisiana, is pushing a single bill using a parliamentary maneuver called “budget reconciliation,” challenging the two-bill strategy pursued by a pair of Senate Republicans, Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota, and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
Johnson said he has been talking with Trump about how best to pass legislation the president-elect wants during the first 100 days of his administration, which begins Jan. 20.
“At the end of the day, President Trump is going to prefer, as he likes to say, one big, beautiful bill,” Johnson told Fox News on Sunday. “And there’s a lot of merit to that, because we can put it all together, one big up-or-down vote, which can save the country, quite literally, because there are so many elements to it.”
Johnson said the bill has “a lot of moving pieces, a lot negotiations” and likely would include restrictive immigration policies, extending tax cuts done under Trump’s prior term as president and increasing the federal government’s borrowing limit.
He added that raising the debt limit would be easier in a single budget reconciliation bill because Republicans wouldn’t have to negotiate with Democrats.
Though the legislation has not been released publicly, he said he expects to get the bill out of the House by April, through the Senate in May and then to the White House for Trump’s signature.
Trump threw his support behind the single-bill plan Sunday night.
“Members of Congress are getting to work on one powerful bill that will bring our country back, and make it greater than ever before,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform. “We must secure our border, unleash American energy, and renew the Trump tax cuts, which were the largest in history, but we will make it even better.”
Thune’s strategy is to split the legislative agenda into two packages that would be considered under budget reconciliation.
“Budget reconciliation” is a parliamentary maneuver available to the majority party for revenue or spending bills to circumvent the 60-vote total needed in the Senate. It would allow Republicans alone to pass the bill, without Democratic support.
Come Jan. 20 when Trump takes his oath of office, Republicans will hold the presidency and majorities in both the House and the Senate.
But those majorities are narrow — three seats in the Senate and a 219-215 count in the House. Johnson can only afford to lose a few votes, depending on how many members show up to vote and whether Democrats oppose a measure as a block.
The GOP majority in the House will soon drop by two when Florida Rep. Mike Waltz resigns to become Trump’s national security adviser and New York Rep. Elise Stefanick is confirmed as United Nations ambassador.
At that point, Johnson won’t be able to afford to lose a single vote at a time when Republicans, particularly in the House, often battle each other over policy stands.
Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican whose district was won by Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race, told CNN a single bill would include multiple issues that more members will support, enough that representatives could accept the parts they don’t like. Multiple bills would be harder to keep the majority needed to pass, he said.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-Madisonville, told reporters Monday that the Republican leaders need to sit down and decide on a strategy.
“Some will be happy and some will be sad because there’s some people in the Senate who feel strongly we ought to split it up,” he said. “But I understand the House’s position, too.”
Johnson told The Hill, a political news outlet, that he spoke with both Trump and Thune Monday, and they agreed the goal is to quickly pass Trump’s legislative agenda whether it’s one bill or two.
“The two houses will get together and we’ll get it done, so stay tuned,” he said.
Email Mark Ballard at mballard@theadvocate.com.
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