The House Appropriations Committee advanced a draft fiscal 2027 Legislative Branch spending bill on Wednesday that would slash the budget for the Government Accountability Office by nearly one-quarter and give a boost to Capitol Police.
The party-line vote of 34-28 came after a contentious markup stretching late into the evening, as Democrats argued the GAO cut would undermine its mission.
“The keyword in the GAO is accountability,” said Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., the ranking member on the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee. “This is not budgeting, it is giving away our oversight authority.”
The measure would provide $611.9 million for the GAO, a cut of 25 percent compared to fiscal 2026, and would bar it from suing under the 1974 budget law restricting presidential impoundments, unless specifically authorized by Congress.
Now that the committee has approved the spending proposal, it is expected to be up for floor consideration at a later date. Overall, the measure would provide $5.4 billion for operations of the House and its various support agencies. Adding in an estimate of Senate-only funds, the total would come to $7.3 billion.
“Fundamentally, this legislation is about stewardship, ensuring that Congress serves the nation, is responsive to its citizens and invests taxpayer dollars responsibly,” said House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla.
Ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said the GAO move runs counter to Republicans’ goal of rooting out waste, fraud and abuse.
“GAO is what DOGE pretended to be — a force for efficiency within the federal government,” DeLauro said, referring to the Trump administration’s sweeping purge of federal programs.
DACA debates
Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., has repeatedly pushed to allow those enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — which allows undocumented immigrants who came to the county as children to stay in the U.S. — to work as staffers on Capitol Hill. While the committee adopted his proposal last year, it never made it into law.
On Wednesday, his amendment was narrowly rejected, 30-32, despite a few Republicans voting in favor, including Legislative Branch Subcommittee Chair David Valadao, R-Calif.
“If we’re going to be a body that is deliberative, then we need voices from all over in order to shape our opinions, to respond to constituents and to come up with the best policy possible,” Aguilar argued at Wednesday’s markup.
COLA questions continue
Lawmakers once again debated a provision, tucked into spending laws year after year, that has blocked cost-of-living adjustments for members of Congress and frozen their pay since 2009.
“What we don’t want to have is a Congress that is exclusively wealthy people,” said Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., one of the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit seeking retroactive backpay.
Hoyer pointed to progress in that suit this week but withdrew his amendment.
Capitol Police, Library of Congress
Capitol Police would get a more than 6 percent boost in fiscal 2027 under the proposal, though that $907.5 million falls short of the agency’s request, which topped $1 billion amid rising threats against lawmakers.
The Members’ Representational Allowance account, which covers operational and office expenses for members of the House and can be used for some types of security, would come in at $900 million, a roughly 6 percent boost.
The Library of Congress would get $875 million, an increase of roughly $23 million from fiscal 2026. It comes after its director Carla Hayden was abruptly fired by President Donald Trump last May.
A manager’s amendment from Valadao, adopted by voice vote, includes language that could change how the librarian and the head of the Government Publishing Office are appointed, moving that power from the president to a congressional commission.
Misconduct
Sexual misconduct in Congress was another topic on Wednesday, as lawmakers reckon with a recent wave of allegations.
A provision in Valadao’s manager’s amendment added language to the bill report that would direct the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights and the Office of Employee Advocacy to brief the committee on ways to improve resources and reporting processes.
Speaking in favor of the amendment, Rep. Glenn F. Ivey, D-Md., implored his colleagues, particularly the male ones, to take the issue seriously.
“And here’s the challenge, and I’ll speak to the men in the room for a second. We know that these issues exist; we don’t necessarily know the full depth of it,” said Ivey, who is also a member of the House Ethics Committee.
Nearby, Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., who is currently under investigation by the Ethics Committee for allegations of sexual misconduct, scrolled on his phone as Ivey spoke. Edwards has said he will comply with the ethics probe to “expose the facts, not politically motivated fiction.”
But appropriators also sparred Wednesday over whether to press forward with more proposals to address misconduct or to wait on the results of a bipartisan effort that House leaders recently announced between the Democratic Women’s Caucus and the GOP Women’s Caucus.
