Washington: What to Watch Now

Both the House and Senate returned to Washington this week for a three-week sprint to the end of the year. Four things to watch:

1. Can Congress make any progress on appropriations bills? The agreement to re-open the government funds all government operations only through January 30th, 2026. It also included three of the 12 appropriations bills—the ones covering Agriculture, Military Construction and Veterans, and the Legislative Branch. Congress must pass the other nine bills to avoid a partial government shutdown at the end of January. Senate Republicans would like to package four or five of the remaining bills together and pass them before the holiday break. House leaders prefer smaller packages. Congress doesn't need to pass any of them before the end of the year, but making significant progress in the next three weeks would be a big step in the right direction.
2. All eyes are on those expiring health insurance subsidies. The subsidies, which help about 22 million Americans purchase health-care insurance through the Affordable Care Act, are set to expire on December 31st. As part of last month's deal, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) promised Democrats a vote on extending the subsidies by December 12th. There is a bipartisan group of senators working on an extension, coupled with income restrictions and other measures to curb fraud in the program. But even if a deal is reached that can pass the Senate—and that is far from certain—it would have an even tougher road in the House. President Donald Trump has said that he might be willing to agree to an extension of the subsidies to give the White House more time to develop a broader health-care plan. How involved he gets will ultimately determine what happens with the subsidies this month.
3. Bank regulation is in the spotlight. The House Financial Services Committee will hold an "oversight of prudential regulators" hearing this week. Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman will testify, along with Acting Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) Chair Travis Hill and Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould. We expect Bowman to get a lot of scrutiny, particularly from committee Democrats, about her efforts to bring a lighter touch to bank regulation. She announced a 30% reduction in bank supervisory staff at the end of October.
4. Will the House consider a ban on stock trading for lawmakers? There is increasing momentum behind a bipartisan effort to ban stock trading for members of Congress, rekindling an issue that has flared up periodically over the last few years. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has been opposed to a ban, but he allowed the House Administration Committee to hold a hearing on the legislation on November 19th in a tacit acknowledgement that the issue is not going away. And Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) has been pushing a "discharge petition," a parliamentary maneuver that can force a House vote on a bill over the objections of the leadership if a majority of members sign on.

The Supreme Court could decide the Texas redistricting case this week. At issue is whether the newly drawn congressional districts in Texas are legal. Republicans in the state moved quickly earlier this year to draw a new map that potentially may lead to Republicans winning as many as five additional House seats. That sparked a wave of redistricting efforts across the country, including the successful California ballot initiative that could lead to Democrats gaining as many as five additional House seats from that state. A federal court blocked the new Texas map on November 18th, setting off chaos in a state where the filing deadline for 2026 candidates is December 8th. The Supreme Court temporarily restored the maps while it considered the case, but a quick decision is expected this week because of the looming filing deadline.

Meanwhile, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) plans to resign in January. Greene dropped the pre-Thanksgiving bombshell in a long social media post, announcing that she will resign from Congress on January 5th, 2026. Greene, long an outspoken advocate for Trump, has seen that relationship sour in recent months amid disagreements on foreign policy, the economy and the Jeffrey Epstein files. Greene was also frustrated that Speaker Johnson kept the House out of session for 54 days during the government shutdown. There have now been 39 House members—23 Republicans and 16 Democrats—who have decided not to run for re-election in 2026. More retirement announcements are expected in the weeks ahead as frustration with the dysfunctional House increases. One Republican House member told a reporter that "morale has never been lower" in the chamber.

Trump said that he has made his decision on who he will nominate to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. An announcement could come any day, particularly with speculation rampant that Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council and one of the president's top economic advisors, is the pick. Hassett has been one of the five "finalists" for the job in an unusually public search process led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The pick will need to go through the Senate confirmation process next year and will not assume the job until current chair Jerome Powell steps down at the end of his term in May.

Meanwhile, the president's nominee to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is on the fast track to confirmation. The president tapped Michael Selig, currently the chief counsel for the SEC's crypto task force, to head the agency in October. The Senate Agriculture Committee held a confirmation hearing for Selig on November 19th and voted to approve him the next day on a party-line 12-11 vote. That lines him up for confirmation by the full Senate before the holiday break. Selig will be the sole member of the five-member commission when he takes over, as Acting Chair Caroline Pham has said she would resign as soon as a new chair is on board. The derivatives regulator is poised to have a much higher profile in the future as the main overseer of the cryptocurrency space.

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