BURSTHouse Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) said he’s pushing GOP leadership to hold off on bringing up Senate-passed legislation that D.C. officials warn is necessary to prevent significant cuts to its local budget.
“We’ve urged the leadership to delay it until we get the budget resolution fixed, and then we should put requirements on that for the District of Columbia,” Harris told The Hill on Thursday.
His comments come as House and Senate Republicans are working to hash out a deal on a budget blueprint that would help pave the way for the party to advance President Trump’s tax agenda.
“We should get the budget resolution agreed to before we take up an issue like whether or not, D.C. should be able to spend that billion dollars on whatever crazy stuff they want to spend it on,” Harris said.
Harris said that conservatives “need a little while to come up with a list of what requirements we should put on D.C.,” but he hit the District for spending “dollars in ways that in the past we thought were pretty foolish.”
Asked whether leadership has told him they’ll wait to bring up the bill, Harris responded, “I don't know, as you know we can usually hold up whatever we need to hold up.”
D.C. officials have been sounding the alarm over legislation passed by Congress earlier this month that officials say could force about $1 billion in cuts to the District’s budget from its locally generated revenues.
Congress earlier this month passed a stopgap funding bill that set government funding at mostly 2024 levels through September.
However, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) and other officials pointed out the legislation left out language that’s been in previous stopgap legislation to allow D.C. to operate at its current fiscal 2025 budget.
As a result, D.C. officials have said the District would be forced to spend at its fiscal 2024 levels like federal agencies would under the stopgap — after running at its updated budget levels for roughly half a year. They said the move will force it to cut roughly $1 billion in spending – though some Republicans have argued the cuts would be lower.
After passing government funding legislation earlier this month, the Senate approved a last-minute fix to prevent cuts to the District’s budget. That bill is now in the House's hands.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said at a press conference on Thursday that the House needs to take up the legislation “before we go on the next district work period, which means it should occur either next week or the week after next.”
“Senate Republicans have clearly and unequivocally expressed support for the spending legislation. Senate Democrats, House Democrats, apparently Donald Trump himself, has expressed support for the need to correct this egregious error that was in the House Republican, highly partisan spending bill, and so it needs to happen.”
While Jeffries said had not spoken to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) “specifically about this,” he added, “If there’s further delay, I will raise it with him directly.”