Congress keeps eye on Hurricane Ian while debating funding government, hearing from Ginni Thomas

It’s a big day in Congress, with the whole of government relying on the Senate to get a funding bill passed by Friday, midnight so it doesn’t shut down. They all have an eye on the massive destruction of Hurricane Ian, which adds even more urgency to getting the funding bill—which includes billions more in natural disaster response funding—out the door. That’s weighty stuff, but the other attention-grabber for Thursday is the virtual testimony of Ginni Thomas in the House Jan. 6 committee.

After Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) dropped his hugely unpopular rider to the bill, getting government funding done is just a matter of time and time in the Senate is everything. The urgency of the hurricane could speed things along, but there’s always going to be a Rand Paul or Ted Cruz who doesn’t mind being universally reviled do try some mischief.

Wednesday night, they advanced the funding bill to the floor, where procedure dictates that they have 30 hours of “debate” (long expanses of classical music on C-SPAN2 while the camera shows an empty chamber) for the bill to ripen. If they want to get it done Thursday so they can all take Friday off, they need an agreement from all 100 senators to set aside the clock. There might be some Republican agitation and delay to get votes for their amendments, but there also might not be, because they always want to leave town on Thursday.