Senate GOP looks to leapfrog House in Trump agenda battle

House and Senate Republicans are plowing full steam ahead with conflicting strategies to enact President Trump’s sweeping agenda, putting the two conferences on a collision course.

The contrasting game plans — the House’s one-bill track versus the Senate’s two-bill blueprint — have been simmering on Capitol Hill for weeks but are set to come to a head this month, an alarming sign for Republican leaders who are under intense pressure to unite and swiftly approve Trump’s legislative priorities.

With time passing and lawmakers growing antsy, the two conferences are racing each other to see whose strategy will win out.

“I take it that the House and Senate leadership are having a hard time getting on the same page,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said.

In a significant development on Wednesday, Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) revealed that his panel will mark up a budget resolution next week on the first part of its two-track strategy aimed at energy, the border and defense priorities, leapfrogging his House counterparts as the lower chamber struggles to coalesce around a blueprint for a single bill.

“I’ve always believed that one big, beautiful bill is too complicated,” Graham told reporters. “What unites Republicans for sure is border security and more money for the military. It’s important we put points on the board, and this plan of [Trump’s] to deport people and get rid of the gangs and the criminals is running into a wall of funding.”

According to Graham, the bill would include about $150 billion each in military and border funding over four years. Committees are currently working to determine potential pay-fors that are compliant with reconciliation guidelines. That measure would be followed by a separate tax package later in the year, crossing other priorities off Trump’s legislative wish list.

The move by Graham comes days after the Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was forced to delay his plan to mark up a budget resolution for a single Trump agenda bill amid deep disagreements over spending cuts. Despite the hang-up, however, Johnson is vowing to find a solution for moving one bill, brushing aside Graham’s move and refusing to give up on his preferred strategy.

“I’m gonna talk to Lindsey, he’s a good friend and he has to understand the reality of the House: It’s a very different chamber with very different dynamics, and the House needs to lead this if we’re gonna have success,” Johnson told reporters. “We’re very comfortable about where we are, we feel very optimistic we’re getting there, and we’re gonna find that equilibrium point and get this done, so stay tuned.”

But in the eyes of Senate GOP members, the time has come to put their imprint on talks as the House’s game plan remains stuck on the tarmac.  

“If we do a bill, Speaker Johnson can always put it on the shelf in the House and they can get to it when they would like to,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a Budget Committee member. “I don’t see this as a competition. I see this as we’ve got a lot to do in the next year.”

Kennedy also rattled off a to-do list that includes reconciliation, government funding and raising the debt ceiling, which he called the “toughest, toughest issue by far.”

“A month is gone here and the president has issued about a squillion executive orders so far, and we need to catch up,” he continued. “We’re going to get started doing our work.” 

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) called the Senate effort “a contingency plan.”

“We want to give the House room to work. If they can’t get there then we have to have a contingency plan. That’s what we do here. We always have to have a contingency plan,” Mullin said. “If it looks like they can’t get there, which is not looking great — according to the schedule, they’re supposed to have it out this week, vote on it next week. Then, we have to have a contingency plan to move forward working with what we feel we can get done.”

“We would love for them to pass something, send it to us. Whatever they pass, we can get passed,” he added. “The problem is we don’t know if what we send them they can pass.”

The angst on the Senate side comes as the House is falling behind on Johnson’s ambitious timeline for enacting Trump’s agenda. Republicans are looking to use the budget reconciliation process, which will allow them to circumvent Democratic opposition in the upper chamber but requires near unanimity in the conferences.

Johnson said he wanted House Republicans to coalesce around a blueprint for a budget resolution — which unlocks the reconciliation process — during last week’s retreat in Florida, then move it through the Budget Committee this week, setting up a vote on the resolution in the chamber later this month. Johnson was hoping to get the ultimate bill to Trump’s desk by Memorial Day or Easter.

A conservative revolt on the Budget Committee, however, stopped that plan in its tracks. Hard-line Republicans balked at an initial budget resolution proposal that featured a $500 billion tax cut floor, with some pushing for overall cuts between $2 trillion and $5 trillion. Johnson has been adamant that he wants to set floors, not ceilings, in the budget resolution because of the strict reconciliation rules.

Heading back to the drawing board, House GOP lawmakers are eyeing a new framework that features $1.65 trillion in spending cuts and $1.65 trillion in new revenues that Republicans say will be the result of their tax cuts, a source told The Hill. Lawmakers are still discussing how to configure the tax portion of the package, with some floating extending the 2017 tax cuts by five years rather than 10 to lower the overall price tag.

“We had a really good conversation, meeting last night, and I think got to a meeting of the minds of where we might be able to go, but there’s still a lot to work out,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who has been a key player in the reconciliation talks.

Other House Republicans, however, say it is time to back the Senate’s two-bill strategy. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which endorsed the two-bill track from the beginning, said the recent setbacks are a sign that it is time to shift the game plan.

“I think we’re stuck in the mud, and I think there’s a lot of, what do they call it, paralysis of analysis, and I think at this point we need to just make a clear decision,” Donalds said. “I agree with a lot of people in the Senate, we need to go to a two-bill strategy. And I think what it’ll do is give us the time to do the things that we must do.”

One thing that remains unclear to Senate Republicans, though, is the timeline for the whole process. 

Under the two-bill track, Senate GOP members are hopeful to draw up a bill within weeks and pass it in the near term, with the second, more complex bill focused on taxes coming later in the year. 

But for now, it’s all about getting the ball rolling at the committee level. 

“That’s a great unknown right now,” Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said. “Obviously, the Budget Committee’s got to get going. That means they’ve got to meet and do their work before we can get anything to the floor.” 

“It’s going to have to be soon,” he added.

Alexander Bolton contributed.