Now that Congress is again from its Thanksgiving recess, the lame duck session is firmly underway.

It’s anticipated to be a busy few weeks. Republicans have retaken the Home, so Democrats have till the start of January to go any lingering laws they’d wish to get by means of earlier than dropping unified management.

On high of that, lawmakers nonetheless have to handle must-pass payments like authorities funding and the authorization of protection spending, each of which they should wrap earlier than 12 months’s finish. In the event that they don’t, the federal government might doubtlessly shut down and the navy might see main planning delays.

Past the routine enterprise on their docket, Democrats are eyeing two massive payments: laws to enshrine protections for same-sex marriage into federal regulation, and a measure to reform the way in which Congress certifies election outcomes. Different priorities, together with immigration reform and an assault weapons ban, have additionally been raised, although getting sufficient GOP help to get them by means of the Senate is prone to be extra of a protracted shot.

Within the final twenty years, when congressional energy modified fingers, lame-duck periods have been frenetic largely as a result of they’re the ultimate alternative for a celebration to perform a few of their key priorities. In accordance with Pew, these periods have accounted for greater than 1 / 4 of Congress’s legislative output in current phrases. This 12 months is shaping as much as be no completely different.

Under is a rundown of some of the payments Congress has on faucet for its lame-duck session this 12 months — and the place they presently stand.

These payments are prone to advance

Similar-sex marriage protections

The Senate is predicted to go same-sex marriage protections this week after 12 Republicans expressed their help for the invoice earlier this month. Due to modifications that senators made to the laws to be able to win that GOP help, the Home may even should vote on the invoice a second time, and is predicted to go it as effectively.

A procedural Senate vote in November revealed that the laws has sufficient help to clear a 60-vote threshold: Republican Sens. Susan Collins (ME), Rob Portman (OH), Thom Tillis (NC), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Mitt Romney (UT), Roy Blunt (MO), Richard Burr (NC), Shelley Moore Capito (WV), Cynthia Lummis (WY), Dan Sullivan (AK), Todd Younger (IN) and Joni Ernst (IA) joined with the 50-member Democratic caucus to vote in favor of the invoice. Their votes counsel the laws will go the Senate when lawmakers vote on last passage later this week following one other procedural vote on Monday.

The Home permitted the invoice, with 47 Republicans becoming a member of 220 Democrats in voting sure, this previous July. The Home will vote on the brand new model of the invoice — which comprises added language on defending spiritual liberties — later this week.

Senate Democrats had postponed a vote on this invoice till after the midterms as a result of they believed they’d be capable of get extra Republican votes as soon as these lawmakers had been much less anxious about alienating conservative Christian voters. Republicans stated, in flip, that they might be extra open to contemplating the laws if it didn’t really feel prefer it was getting used for political messaging through the midterms.

The invoice would repeal the 1996 Protection of Marriage Act, permitted throughout President Invoice Clinton’s administration, which outlined marriage as a authorized union between a person and a girl, and would assure recognition of same-sex and interracial marriages below federal regulation.

The brand new laws is each historic and central to guaranteeing same-sex marriage protections. It turned a Democratic precedence following an opinion from Supreme Court docket Justice Clarence Thomas, by which he floated doubtlessly revisiting Obergefell v. Hodges, the judicial choice that established such rights in 2015. The Supreme Court docket’s choice to overturn Roe v. Wade has raised the likelihood that the panel might do the identical with different precedents.

The help that the laws has represents a significant shift, although nearly all of each Home and Senate Republicans are nonetheless against the measure. Some Republicans — together with Sens. John Cornyn (TX) and Marco Rubio (FL) — have beforehand stated they don’t help the invoice as a result of they don’t assume these rights are being threatened.

Electoral Rely Act reforms

There’s been a bipartisan push to reform the Electoral Rely Act, which lays out Congress’s position in counting electoral votes following a presidential election, but it surely’s nonetheless ready on a vote within the Senate. This invoice would replace the ECA in a bid to forestall elected officers from utilizing the method to overturn the election outcomes, like former President Donald Trump tried to do in 2021. Key reforms embody clarifying the vice chairman’s position within the counting course of as purely ceremonial and growing the brink of lawmakers it takes to problem the outcomes of an election. At present, it takes only one Senate and one Home member to object to a state’s final result to ensure that Congress to contemplate and vote on the objection.

In September, the Home handed its model of those reforms and the Senate is prone to do the identical within the coming weeks. At this level, greater than 10 Republicans have expressed their help for the invoice, a robust signal that it’s going to go. As Vox’s Ben Jacobs has defined, these insurance policies aren’t sufficient to ensure that one other January 6 gained’t occur, although they will get rid of some authorized loopholes unhealthy actors could attempt to exploit.

The Senate’s model of the invoice differs from the Home’s, nevertheless, so the decrease chamber will in all probability have to contemplate the laws once more. One distinction consists of the brink for difficult a state’s outcomes: The Home’s invoice would require one-third of lawmakers in each chambers to signal on, whereas the Senate’s would require one-fifth of lawmakers.

The Home might approve the Senate model after it’s handed, although the method might take longer if the 2 chambers search to reconcile among the variations within the payments. As Politico reported, there’s additionally a risk that lawmakers attempt to connect this laws to both the must-pass authorities funding package deal or the Nationwide Protection Authorization Act, given how little flooring time Congress has left earlier than the top of the 12 months.

Funding the federal government

The deadline to maintain the federal government open is now December 16, when a short-term spending invoice handed earlier this 12 months is because of expire.

Lawmakers have the choice of passing one other short-term invoice, also called a seamless decision (CR), or the full-year appropriations payments that will fund completely different authorities businesses and applications. As a result of they’re nonetheless negotiating figures for the bigger spending payments, Congress might go a week-long CR to purchase themselves extra time and prolong their deadline to December 23.

In the event that they fail to approve both a full-year invoice or one other CR, the federal government would shut down, furloughing workers and considerably curbing sure companies.

Key appropriations requests embody roughly $38 billion extra in support to Ukraine in addition to $10 billion in pandemic support to additional the distribution of vaccines and drugs. Each might see some Republican opposition, with the GOP cut up on extra help for Ukraine, and a lot of the occasion balking at extra cash to handle the pandemic.

Authorizing protection spending

One other must-pass invoice that Congress has to contemplate is the Nationwide Protection Authorization Act, which establishes funding allocations for the protection division.

There was hypothesis that Sen. Joe Manchin’s allowing reform invoice, which beforehand garnered opposition from Republicans and progressive Democrats, might be hooked up to the NDAA. The prospect of that occuring is wanting much less promising as a consequence of ongoing GOP pushback.

This invoice would streamline the approval course of for fossil gas and clear power initiatives, and assure permits for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a pure gasoline mission in West Virginia, Manchin’s house state. Progressives had pushed again on the laws due to the inclusion of the pipeline and the priority that the approval course of Manchin envisions would dilute communities’ alternatives to weigh in on these initiatives. Republicans, in the meantime, felt the reforms wouldn’t expedite initiatives sufficient, and in addition weren’t inquisitive about giving Manchin a win following his help for the Inflation Discount Act.

It’s not but clear whether or not Manchin will tweak his invoice to handle a few of these issues, or if it must be dropped but once more after it wasn’t in a position to decide up ample votes in September.

In mid-November, Home Minority Chief Kevin McCarthy signaled an curiosity in suspending an NDAA vote till subsequent 12 months when Home Republicans will be capable of ship extra of a message with the measure. McCarthy has argued that Democrats had been attempting to advertise “woke” insurance policies with the invoice, although he didn’t element what he meant by that. As Politico reported, Republican critiques have included insurance policies like masks mandates and variety initiatives within the navy.

As a result of sure Home Democrats typically vote in opposition to the NDAA to be able to specific their opposition to protection spending, the occasion will possible want some Republican help to be able to go the invoice. Relying on how aggressively McCarthy sticks by and pushes a possible delay, that help might be more durable to acquire this 12 months.

It might be stunning if Congress doesn’t go the NDAA earlier than 2023, nevertheless, because it’s achieved so for the previous 61 years.

These payments have additionally been floated

(Possibly) elevating the debt ceiling

Democrats even have the possibility to lift the debt ceiling and stave off a doubtlessly calamitous stand-off that would occur subsequent 12 months if Republicans take the Home.

Growing or suspending the debt ceiling (mainly, the quantity the US is ready to borrow) is a routine motion Congress has to take as a result of if it doesn’t, the US might default on its payments and destabilize the nation’s economic system. Regardless of that, it’s a second Republicans have indicated that they are going to use for leverage to safe cuts to funding for social applications and clear power initiatives.

Democrats might forestall this from occurring by approving a large enhance whereas they nonetheless management each the Home and the Senate this 12 months, although the US isn’t projected to hit the debt ceiling till someday in 2023.

Due to that timing, in addition to Congress’s packed schedule, it’s not clear if they are going to get to that precedence earlier than subsequent 12 months.

Immigration reform

Congress is attempting, as soon as once more, to go immigration reform, an ambition that’s been thwarted repeatedly within the final decade.

Some Democrats are pushing laws that would offer DACA recipients — undocumented immigrants who got here to the US as kids — a pathway to citizenship, after members of this system have been caught in limbo for years. This system has confronted quite a few court docket challenges, although the Biden administration has sought to maintain it intact. Laws from Congress would assist present DACA recipients with extra everlasting standing and supply a pathway to citizenship that doesn’t presently exist.

The principle holdup for this laws is within the Senate, the place it wants 10 Republicans to signal on to be able to go. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), a longtime chief of immigration negotiations, has stated he is aware of of 4 or 5 Republicans who’d be open to the invoice, however the laws would require extra to really advance.

An assault weapons ban

Within the wake of a collection of mass shootings in current weeks, Democrats have raised the potential for approving an assault weapons ban, although the measure isn’t prone to have ample Republican help within the Senate.

Such a ban would bar the sale of semi-automatic firearms, that are in a position to hearth off many rounds of ammunition extraordinarily shortly. Because the Related Press’s Colleen Lengthy, Mary Clare Jalonick, and Lindsay Whitehurst write, these weapons embody “a bunch of high-powered weapons or semi-automatic lengthy rifles, like an AR-15, that may hearth 30 rounds quick with out reloading.” In November, a shooter used an assault-style rifle to kill 5 folks and injure a number of others at an LGBTQ night time membership in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), a number one architect of Congress’s bipartisan gun management package deal, famous Senate backing could be the first impediment, however that Democrats would proceed to push the problem. Beforehand, Congress handed an assault weapons ban in 1994, however lawmakers had been unable to resume it after it lapsed a decade later.

“The Home has already handed it. It’s sitting in entrance of the Senate. Does it have 60 votes within the Senate proper now? In all probability not,” Murphy stated in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. “However let’s see if we are able to attempt to get that quantity as near 60 as potential.”

Latest lame geese have been fairly productive

Lame-duck periods had been as soon as fairly sporadic affairs, although they’ve turn into rather more widespread, and productive, lately.

Since 2000, particularly, a good chunk of Congress’s output has really taken place throughout lame-duck periods, per Pew. Over the last Congress, almost 44 % of what it handed — together with a significant coronavirus reduction package deal — was permitted throughout this session.

Different energetic lame-duck periods embody 2010, when Democrats misplaced management of the Home, and handed a number of main payments earlier than they handed it over to Republicans. They repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Inform,” handed a nuclear arms discount treaty with Russia and permitted an extension of tax cuts established through the Bush administration, in keeping with the Atlantic. Previous to the shift in congressional energy in 2019, Republicans additionally used the lame-duck session to approve the First Step Act, a groundbreaking prison justice reform invoice, in addition to a reauthorization of the farm invoice, which authorizes spending for Agriculture Division applications.

This 12 months is poised to be one other busy lame-duck session, significantly since that is Democrats’ final probability to shepherd payments by means of earlier than Republicans regain Home management.

Replace, November 28, 2:45 pm ET: This story was initially revealed on November 15 and has been up to date to mirror developments concerning particular payments.