With just 53 Senate session days and 40 House session days left before November, congressional Republicans have a long list of unfinished legislation and a dwindling window to deliver results to voters already souring on the party's economic stewardship. A Daily Caller News Foundation report published Saturday catalogues the scope of the problem: at least eight major bills, spanning immigration enforcement, voter ID, housing, infrastructure, cryptocurrency regulation, FISA reauthorization, war powers, and affordability, are either stalled, partially passed, or stuck between chambers.
The question is no longer whether Republicans can pass everything they promised. It is whether they can pass enough to give voters a reason to keep them in the majority.
The centerpiece of the GOP legislative push, a second reconciliation package directing more than $30.73 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and $22.57 billion to Customs and Border Protection through 2029, has already missed President Trump's June 1 deadline to reach his desk. Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that four sections of the bill violated the Byrd Rule, stripping out provisions that funded Border Patrol operations, DHS appropriations, and screening of unaccompanied migrant children.
That ruling forced Republicans to rework the bill, and internal disagreements have slowed the fix. Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told Semafor the package "is way too important not to do," but importance alone does not produce 50 votes.
The Washington Examiner reported that Speaker Mike Johnson can afford to lose only two Republican votes on the House side due to his razor-thin majority. Multiple GOP factions are threatening to block or expand the bill. Rep. Thomas Massie has raised debt concerns. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna and other SAVE America Act advocates want election integrity provisions added. The House Freedom Caucus wants a broader package altogether.
Johnson faces the same arithmetic that nearly sank last year's tax bill, when Republicans could only afford to lose three votes and lost two. The margin is even thinner now.
As Senate Republicans have already warned, House gridlock is damaging the party's brand heading into the midterms.
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which would require voters to present proof of U.S. citizenship before casting a ballot in a federal election, passed the House on April 10. It has gone nowhere in the Senate.
The bill cannot clear the 60-vote filibuster threshold. Democrats have argued the legislation would disenfranchise certain demographics, prevent married women who changed their names from voting, and end online voter registration. Those claims have not stopped 50 senators from co-sponsoring the bill, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine became the 50th in February, but co-sponsorship and floor votes are different animals.
President Trump has pressured Republicans to eliminate the filibuster to pass the bill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said the Senate lacks the votes to do so. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said in February she would not support the legislation at all. Former Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has actively voted against efforts to advance it.
The filibuster fight has already claimed a political casualty. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas pushed to eliminate the filibuster to pass the SAVE Act. Republican Texas Senate nominee Ken Paxton, who called the bill "the most important bill the U.S. Senate could ever pass," defeated Cornyn by a landslide in a Tuesday runoff, a result that underscored grassroots frustration with the Senate's inability to deliver on election integrity.
With Collins as the 50th co-sponsor, Vice President J.D. Vance could theoretically break a tie. But Murkowski's opposition and McConnell's resistance mean the math still does not add up under current rules.
Immigration and voter ID are only part of the logjam. Congress has repeatedly delayed final votes on reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which permits warrantless surveillance of foreign nationals' communications with Americans. Both chambers must extend Section 702 by June 12, less than two weeks away. A proposed three-year extension remains in limbo, and internal Republican revolts over FISA reauthorization have already tested Johnson's grip on the conference.
The House passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act on May 21, a housing affordability bill that would expand loans for building housing, curb Wall Street's ownership of single-family homes, push local governments to loosen permitting rules, and expand manufactured housing. But the Senate passed its own version back in March, and the two chambers must now reconcile differences, a process that consumes time Republicans do not have.
On May 22, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee passed the BUILD America 250 Act, a five-year surface transportation reauthorization package funding federal highways, transit systems, and bridges. The current infrastructure law expires September 30. If Congress misses that deadline, highway and transit funding lapses.
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, House Bill 3633, aims to resolve regulatory disputes by defining which federal agencies can oversee various parts of the cryptocurrency industry. It has not reached a final vote in either chamber.
And on May 21, the House delayed a vote on a war powers resolution that would have restricted Trump's ability to continue military operations in Iran. Under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, a president has 60 days to engage in a military conflict before Congress must either declare war or authorize the use of force. The resolution likely would have passed, but Memorial Day recess absences thinned the ranks.
Republicans are navigating this legislative pileup against an economic backdrop that offers them no cover. The Consumer Price Index rose 0.6% on a seasonally adjusted basis in April, following a 0.9% increase in March. Gas prices have jumped 50% since the Iran war began, averaging $4.50 per gallon. A May 20 Quinnipiac poll found 58% of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy, with just 38% approving.
The Iran war itself is deeply unpopular. A PBS NewsHour survey found 60% of the public disapproves. An Ipsos poll put disapproval of U.S. military strikes in Iran at 58%.
These numbers explain why House Speaker Johnson has described the planned third reconciliation package as focused on "affordability and anti-fraud measures." He has also promised holdouts from the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act that Republicans would use reconciliation to deliver $1.5 trillion in spending cuts. Johnson's office did not respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
AP News reported that Republicans have roughly 24 legislative days before the August recess to pass a budget blueprint and advance legislation. Sen. Murkowski offered a blunt assessment of the third reconciliation bill's prospects: "A third reconciliation may or may not happen. I'm just being direct."
Johnson himself acknowledged the dysfunction in remarks reported by the Washington Times: "I do so deeply desire to have just a normal Congress. But it doesn't happen anymore. Our way is to plow through and get it done."
Plowing through requires votes he may not have.
Adding to the intraparty friction, the Trump administration's $1.8 billion fund for people alleging the justice system was "weaponized" against them has split Republicans. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said the fund would allow Trump to hand payments to people without any "legal precedent or accountability." Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina warned it would "compensate people who assaulted Capitol Police officers."
Thune said he did not see a need for the fund and noted his colleagues wanted conditions on who could receive payments. On May 21, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Rep. Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat, introduced bipartisan legislation to prohibit the use of taxpayer money for the fund entirely.
The dispute is not a minor sideshow. It reveals a Republican conference that cannot agree on how to spend money even when it controls both chambers and the White House.
Republicans entered this session already bruised. Democrats refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security following high-profile shootings involving immigration agents in Minneapolis in January, triggering a 76-day DHS shutdown that Johnson eventually resolved by reversing course on a Senate funding bill. That episode consumed weeks of legislative bandwidth and political capital.
Johnson has also dealt with internal management crises, including ethics proceedings against a sitting member, further draining his attention and his conference's cohesion.
Thune, for his part, put the best face on the situation in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation:
"From day one, Senate Republicans have committed our majority to providing Americans with safer streets, more money in their pockets, and new opportunities to get ahead. There's no better example of that success than the historic Working Families Tax Cuts bill, which included more than 100 individual bills aimed at making Americans' lives safer and more secure. But with six months until Election Day, there's plenty more to be done, and we won't take our foot off the gas to continue getting our shared Republican agenda in place and putting Democrats on record for their out-of-touch priorities."
Putting Democrats on record is a fine campaign tactic. But voters sent Republicans to Washington to pass laws, not hold show votes. With gas at $4.50 a gallon, a war most Americans oppose, and a legislative calendar that shrinks by the week, the GOP majority has a simple problem: time is the one thing it cannot negotiate.
Majorities that fail to deliver do not stay majorities for long. Republicans have 53 days to prove they remember that.
