Democrats and Republicans agree that getting out of this government shutdown won’t be easy. But it will look like a cake walk compared to what comes next.
A Supreme Court ruling last week effectively green-lit President Donald Trump’s ability to use “pocket rescissions,” wherein congressionally approved funding is clawed back. That ruling complicates not only shutdown negotiations but any hope for a bipartisan funding agreement in the future.
“We need to get assurances that once we make a decision — Democrats and Republicans, we appropriate funds — they’re not going to rescind,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.
Last Friday, the court allowed the Trump administration to withhold $4 billion in foreign aid that had been appropriated by Congress. The justices sent the case back to the lower courts and did not address the legality of the controversial tactic, where the president submits a rescission request so late in the fiscal year that Congress doesn’t have enough time to act on the request, essentially circumventing lawmakers’ power of the purse.
In the days since the ruling, as a shutdown looked ever more imminent, Democrats have said their demands to add additional guardrails to a short-term funding bill are much more urgent. DeLauro told NOTUS the Supreme Court’s decision was “disastrous to the appropriations process.”
One Senate Democrat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told NOTUS that in private conversations with colleagues, “there’s still a lot of belief that the appropriators should do the work that they are supposed to do, and there’s faith in that process.”
But understanding the ramifications of the Supreme Court’s initial ruling, the senator said, the need for guardrails is exacerbated. “Republicans are asking us, basically, to give Donald Trump a blank check because they refuse to stand up for the bills that we’re passing. What’s the point?” they said. “What’s the point of passing a bill if they just do whatever the hell they want to do anyway?”
Office of Management and Budget’s director, Russell Vought — the mastermind behind the Trump administration’s strategy on pocket rescissions — called the ruling a “major victory” on X. Now that the government is shut down, Vought announced he plans to freeze $18 billion in federal funding for infrastructure projects in New York, citing “unconstitutional DEI principles,” and later posted on X that $8 billion worth of Green New Deal projects were being cancelled in 16 largely Democratic states. These cuts aren’t technically pocket rescissions but they feed into Democrats’ fears that the Trump administration will simply get rid of programs they don’t like, even if Congress funds them through the appropriations process.
Sen. Jack Reed, a Democratic appropriator, said the court decision “undermines our constitutional, not only power, but obligation to control the purse of the United States.” He added that he hopes that, as the court case continues, the justices can eventually “have a chance to redeem themselves.”
One Democratic House appropriator, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, suggested that if the court declares the administration’s use of pocket rescissions to be constitutional, it could make lawmakers not want to join the normally coveted appropriations committee at all.
“It’s definitely a negative down arrow on whether someone wants to sit through dozens of hours of hearings and full-committee markups, all to have bipartisan products set aside by the president,” the lawmaker, who has served on the committee under both Democratic and Republican administrations, said. “I think Democrats are frustrated. I think some Republicans are frustrated.”
“There’s always tensions and frustrations with an executive or an administration,” the member added. “But never like this. Never so blatantly disregarding a bipartisan work product and funding levels that we all agree with. That part is new and unfortunate.”
As for Republicans, they say the ruling isn’t something to worry about, at least not yet.
The Senate Appropriations Committee’s chair, Sen. Susan Collins, said she is keeping an eye on the case, telling NOTUS that it’s “not a final decision.”
“I hope when they look at the merits that they will rule otherwise,” she continued.
Rep. Tom Cole, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, told reporters in a pen-and-pad on Monday that the ruling was “not something I’m too worried about.”
Sen. John Kennedy echoed that sentiment, and said, “the Impoundment Act has been the law for a while. Not every president uses it, but President Trump is not doing anything that’s not written into the law.”
Other appropriators seemed more worried about the future impacts. The plan right now, generally, is that after Congress restores government funding through a continuing resolution, appropriators can go back to the difficult task of negotiating the 12 full spending bills for the 2026 fiscal year. The Supreme Court indicating it will grant Trump permission to rescind appropriated money adds a wrinkle to the process.
“I think any executive would say it’s an expansion of their authority,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican and an appropriations subcommittee chair, told NOTUS.
“We ought to be the ones asserting our response, our jurisdiction and our responsibility as appropriators. That’s the preferred route,” she continued. “This probably spurs us to work harder to get our work done and to write the bills, so that they’re more ironclad, so to speak.”
Article 1 of the Constitution ensures that public funds cannot be spent without congressional authorization, and the Government Accountability Office considers pocket rescissions unlawful. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a senior Democratic appropriator, said the Supreme Court’s ruling “caught me by surprise.”
“We have the power of the purse,” Espaillat said. “It is sad that the Supreme Court … limits our ability to legislate and appropriate for the people that we represent.”
Some appropriators had urged the justices to rule against the Trump administration.
In an amicus brief filed to the Supreme Court on behalf of DeLauro, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan government watchdog nonprofit, wrote that allowing the president to “unilaterally rescind appropriations without congressional approval” would “disrupt” appropriators’ negotiations on funding bills for the upcoming fiscal year.
Collins in August slammed Trump’s rescission request to Congress, calling it “a clear violation of the law” and an “attempt to undermine the law.”
Rep. Steny Hoyer, a senior Democratic appropriator, told NOTUS that he has previously spoken to Vought about his meddling in the legislative process: “I’ve said to Vought, you know, ‘When we pass a law, it’s not a suggestion. You think it’s a suggestion — that’s absurd.’” (A spokesperson for Vought did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment.)
DeLauro put it plainly.
“The president of the United States knows nothing about budgets, knows nothing about appropriations,” she said. “Russ Vought does, and that’s what he’s trying to do and he’s the puppet master.”