The House returned this week for a brief four-day session, passing a continuing resolution to fund the government through Dec. 11 and taking up symbolic messaging bills on socialism and Supreme Court expansion. But there was no movement on the Russia and Iran sanctions legislation, and Republican leaders offered no firm timeline for a vote.
Compressed Calendar Leaves Little Room
House GOP leaders canceled the final two weeks of the September session, meaning the chamber will be out from Sept. 17 until Nov. 9 — a seven-week recess that leaves just four legislative days before the midterms. That narrow window is now the central obstacle for the Russia sanctions bill, which passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support.
Utah Rep. Blake Moore, a Republican, said he supports moving quickly but acknowledged the backlog. “I would hope it gets done quickly,” Moore said. “I know I’d be supportive of getting something like that done as soon as possible, but I don’t know. There’s a mountain of stuff we’ve got to do. The Senate obviously has a vast majority of our stuff that they are sitting on. … It’d be great to see if we could get it done, but I just — I don’t know if it’s a priority for this week with government funding.”
Tariff Authority Splits the Caucus
The sanctions package targets Russian officials, oligarchs, their family members, foreign persons, and Russian banks and financial institutions. But the provision generating the most friction in the House is language that would allow the president to impose targeted tariffs on countries that purchase the vast majority of Russian oil or gas. That authority was critical to securing President Donald Trump’s support, but it has alarmed House Democrats who point to Trump’s aggressive use of tariff powers during his second term.
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., signaled caution. “We stand firmly and strongly behind Ukraine, the Ukrainian people, in their effort to protect their territorial sovereignty and integrity, and push back against this brutal, unprecedented, and unprovoked attack that was launched by Vladimir Putin,” Jeffries said. “I have serious concerns with the legislation. I haven’t been able to evaluate it line by line yet, but I expect that the House Democratic Caucus will have a conversation about it as early as this week.”
Top Democrats on the Foreign Relations and Ways and Means committees have echoed those concerns, and some centrist Republicans share the unease. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., acknowledged the friction. “This should be a bipartisan effort. We all believe in sanctioning Russia, but we have to have the right environment to pass the bill. So we’ll see how that goes,” Johnson said. “It’s a couple of pockets of concern about it. But I think the broad consensus of this Congress, of course, is that we would want to sanction Russia for what they’re doing.”
Senate Defends Narrowly Tailored Language
Senate Democrats anticipated the tariff concerns and said they carefully negotiated the language to prevent any broad expansion of presidential authority. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., defended the provision last month. “The tariff authority is narrowly targeted and confined to the five largest purchasers of Russian oil and gas,” Blumenthal said. “None of our European allies are hit (by it). The president simply has no authority under this bill to apply tariffs in a broad blunderbuss way.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said discussions are ongoing but offered no commitment. “We’re working through it. We want to bring it, but not sure exactly when yet that decision has not been made,” Scalise said. “We’ve got a few folks that we’ll be talking to still about it.”
Momentum Faded After Graham’s Death
The sanctions package had been under negotiation for years but gained significant momentum following the unexpected death of Sen. Lindsey Graham, who had spearheaded the effort since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Senate passed the bill in early August in a major bipartisan vote, but that momentum appears to have dissipated once the legislation reached the House.
The timing problem is straightforward. Unless Republican leadership elevates the Russia sanctions bill to a priority during the chamber’s single legislative week in September, the measure could be punted until after the midterms — when the political landscape may look entirely different.
What Happens Next
The House returns Sept. 14 for what is now its final pre-election legislative window. If GOP leaders want to pass the Russia sanctions bill before November, they will need to resolve the tariff authority dispute quickly — either by reassuring skeptical Democrats and centrist Republicans that the language is sufficiently narrow, or by adjusting the bill in ways that could complicate Senate sign-off.
Watch for whether the House Democratic Caucus takes a formal position on the legislation in the coming week. Jeffries indicated that conversation could happen soon, and his assessment will largely determine whether the bill has a realistic path to the floor. If Democrats unify in opposition to the tariff provision, Republican leaders may calculate that a floor vote isn’t worth the political cost before the midterms.
The broader stakes extend beyond this single bill. With the House and Senate holding razor-thin majorities, the midterm results will shape whether a Russia sanctions package — or any major foreign policy legislation — can move in the next Congress. A lame-duck session after November remains a possibility, but by then the political incentives will have shifted, and the bipartisan coalition that powered the Senate vote may be harder to reconstruct.
— Omar Hassan, politics desk, AXO News