Republican infighting is leaving Congress in legislative limbo, with divisions between House and Senate Republicans blocking a laundry list of stalled legislation that could otherwise reach President Donald Trump's desk. The people who are supposed to run the machine cannot even keep their own factions aligned, and the result is gridlock that spills downward onto everyone waiting for housing fixes, safety rules, or funding decisions. Trump could intervene to settle many of the disputes, but he has kept his distance in most cases, leaving each chamber to push ahead with its own proposals and against its counterparts in the other chamber. In the one instance where the president appears truly invested, passage of a sweeping GOP elections bill, his fixation has only made the intraparty divisions worse. Lawmakers will return to Washington next week with the pre-midterm legislative calendar dwindling and leaders eyeing action on at least one party-line budget reconciliation bill. **Who Gets Stuck Waiting** On housing affordability, a bipartisan effort to address housing prices is being held up by disputes over niche policy provisions. The Senate passed a bill last month that includes a temporary ban on central bank digital currency and a provision restricting large investors from owning more than 350 homes. Both provisions face serious opposition from House Republicans, who joined with Democrats in their chamber to pass their own bill in February. House Financial Services Chair French Hill, R-Ark., and others in the GOP are pushing for the two chambers to go to conference. That is the familiar ritual: bills move, then stall, then get trapped between chambers while the people facing housing costs are left with the paperwork of power instead of relief. The Senate version and House version are not just different; they are another reminder that even when lawmakers claim to be addressing affordability, the fight quickly shifts to which faction gets to write the rules. **Safety, Sports, and the Usual Dead Ends** On aviation safety, legislation responding to the deadly crash near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport last year is stuck in a battle of wills among GOP committee chairs. A bill backed by Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz, R-Texas, appeared set for Trump's desk earlier this year until House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Transportation and Infrastructure Chair Sam Graves, R-Mo., came out against it, causing the measure to fail on the House floor. The Senate bill's requirement for advanced aircraft location-alerting technology has been one of the biggest points of contention among Republicans, while the House version opts for more open-ended language and focuses on a different technology that major aviation labor groups argue would not have prevented the Washington disaster. Cruz called the House rejection of his ROTOR Act a "temporary delay," while the House chairs are pushing forward with their own ALERT Act, with a floor vote expected Tuesday. On college sports, Trump has taken a keen interest in college athletics, issuing a flurry of executive orders, but Congress has struggled to act on legislation tackling the controversial name, image and likeness regime for compensating student athletes. House Republicans last year pushed the SCORE Act, which would create new standards for how college athletes are paid and give antitrust exemptions, before opposition from hard-liners and many Democrats put it on ice. There has been new chatter about putting it on the floor this month, but the bill is dead on arrival in the Senate, where Cruz and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., have warned it does not have enough support. The two are discussing ways to address NIL concerns but have yet to produce a bill. **The Machinery Keeps Grinding, Not Solving** On tech regulation, the House and Senate have failed to reach consensus on artificial intelligence and children’s online safety. The House GOP largely wants to codify a Trump executive order creating a national AI rulebook, but some Senate Republicans appear concerned that the president’s plan could limit state-level regulations the White House wants to override. There is a similar standoff over online safety bills. The Senate cleared a privacy bill by unanimous consent, but the House has not taken it up and instead is pushing ahead with a package that does not include key Senate-passed provisions. One key difference is state preemption, included in the House version but not the Senate version. Another dispute is over "duty of care" language in the Senate bill that requires tech companies to design their platforms with an eye toward preventing harm to children. Senate Majority Leader John Thune floated pairing AI legislation with kids online safety legislation in an interview earlier this year. The pattern is the same across the board: one chamber passes something, the other strips it, and the public gets the spectacle of process while the actual harms remain in place. Cryptocurrency is another source of gridlock: a closely watched market structure bill is stuck in the Senate after it was excluded from a landmark crypto bill signed into law last year despite a push in the House. The Trump administration is increasing pressure, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying Thursday that "Senate time is precious, and now is the time to act." **Power Plays Over Elections and Homeland Security** On elections oversight, conservative lawmakers and Trump have joined forces behind the SAVE America Act, a GOP bill aimed at fully eliminating noncitizen voting, as a top-level, must-pass agenda item even as many Senate Republicans doubt it can ever clear the chamber's 60-vote filibuster threshold. Trump views the bill as his "No. 1 priority," and House hard-liners are pushing for a filibuster workaround. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, has pushed to force Democrats into a "talking filibuster" where they would have to hold the floor to block the bill, and the Senate will resume debate early next week with no indication of when GOP leaders will choose to hold a likely doomed vote and move on. Some Republicans, including Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, want to try to pass parts of the bill through reconciliation later this fall, but hard-liners view that as a nonstarter because most of the bill likely violates the strict Senate rules governing the party-line reconciliation process. The reform talk keeps circling the same drain: filibusters, workarounds, and procedural theater, while the underlying power struggle remains untouched. On DHS funding, there is no bigger dispute for House and Senate Republicans to settle than funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which has already been subject to nearly a month of back-and-forth. A Senate-passed bill delivering funding for all of the department save for immigration enforcement agencies is currently held up in the House. Republicans there are not enthused about a plan that would instead fund ICE and other agencies through the reconciliation process, an idea Speaker Mike Johnson called "garbage" before flipping in support. Now many House Republicans want their Senate counterparts to pass immigration enforcement funding before the House passes the balance of DHS spending. The hard-line Freedom Caucus has gone further, demanding GOP leaders fund all of DHS through reconciliation. As party leaders make plans to pass a narrowly targeted reconciliation bill ahead of a Trump-imposed June 1 deadline, most Senate Republicans want the House to fund most of DHS now or risk prolonging the infighting that even one GOP senator called a "circular firing squad."
