Congressional Appropriators Worry Their Committees’ Powers Are Waning

Congressional appropriators are facing yet another challenge to their authority after Republicans laid out plans to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the foreseeable future through budget reconciliation.

Appropriations members have been through the wringer for much of the past year, having endured two painful shutdowns sandwiched around a monthslong effort that culminated in Congress funding the vast majority of the federal government. All of that also came after a pair of rescission bills that challenged their standing further.

With the DHS shutdown almost in the rearview, appropriators are staring down the emerging Republican plan to fund the department for three years in an upcoming reconciliation package — which allows a party to pass top priorities with majority support. They are already admitting it will hurt them moving forward in pending negotiations and set a worrisome precedent down the line.

“Democrats have put us where we are, and we have to deal with it,” Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota, a senior Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters Monday. “We don’t have a choice.” But Hoeven also acknowledged it could be a slippery slope.

Asked whether he was worried about setting a new precedent, he conceded, “Me, as an appropriator? Yeah.”

Appropriations panels in both chambers have long been a source of power, with members often being able to steer money and projects to their home states. That is especially the case with earmarks back as part of spending negotiations, making it a coveted committee for lawmakers.

He believes, however, that the majority has no option but to take this step as they wait for the House to pass the DHS funding bill, which does not provide funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and parts of Customs and Border Protection.

“That’s enough of this with the Democrats. … Democrats have put us where we are, and we have to deal with it,” the senior appropriator told reporters. “We don’t have a choice.”

From the end of the full shutdown in mid-November through late January, appropriators were having a mini-renaissance as both chambers were able to make substantial progress on reaching bipartisan deals on most bills for the remainder of the fiscal year. They passed six of the bills without much issue.

The other six bills were well on their way to getting across the line before immigration agents killed two individuals, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis, and upended that push. Lawmakers eventually passed the non-DHS funding measures as is, leaving the thorniest bill for later.

The latest shutdown and the potential extension of DHS funds via reconciliation, however, is not altering the posture of leaders as they head into fiscal year 2027 discussions.

“They did great work, and I’m encouraging them to go through the process again this year, marking bills up, and we’ll see where the Democrats, again, are in terms of funding government,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told NOTUS. “Hopefully the rest of it they’ll work with us to do. We’ll find out soon enough.“

On top of purely wanting to get the government funded, there was also a political angle at hand in the 2026 funding effort for Thune and Republicans, as they sought to ensure that Sen. Susan Collins would seek reelection in November.

Collins had long sought to lead the committee, which has been described as her dream job, only for unilateral actions by the Trump administration and the 43-day shutdown to disrupt her agenda.

GOP leaders are aware that this latest strategy will have ramifications down the road, even if it is widely acknowledged that the DHS bill has routinely been considered the most difficult item to get across the finish line.

“Obviously, if you’re an appropriator, nobody’s happy about this. I’m not happy about this,” Thune said. “It undermines appropriations, in my view, and it’s a dangerous precedent for the long term for the appropriations process and for the institution itself.”

Thune noted that the majority party foresaw the tumult that emerged by including $130 billion in funds for ICE and CBP.

The push in the coming weeks will break new ground as Republicans attempt to fund a full agency unilaterally. The majority leader has insisted that the bill will only include DHS funding, but others in the party have refused to rule out the possibility of other items being included, including upward of $200 billion for the war with Iran, either now or in a potential third reconciliation bill.

The concern moving forward is that using reconciliation this way will open up a can of worms whenever one party holds full control of government.

Democrats, for example, may decide to fund some of their priorities using budget reconciliation that Republicans have had little desire to green-light, especially some non-defense items, like child-care or health-care programs. One senior Senate GOP aide pointed to some programs that are part of the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as others at the State Department concerning foreign aid, that could fall into that category, as Republicans have been loath in the past to fund them.

“The ‘what goes around comes around’ nature of this place — that mentality will live long into the future,” the aide said.

This new way of going about doling out funds has landed with a thud among some members.

“That is a terrible way to run the government and to do appropriations,” Democratic Sen. Chris Coons told reporters recently.

“Doing it through reconciliation requires no compromise with the other party,” he continued. “If that becomes the sole way that we fund the core functions of government, that is a bad idea.”