Congress Returns to a Crowded Calendar
Congress is scheduled to return from its pre-election recess in the week of 9 November, six days after the midterm elections on Tuesday, 3 November, for a lame-duck session that will run, with a break for Thanksgiving, until around Christmas. The term lame duck describes the period between an election and the seating of a new Congress in January, when members who have lost their seats or who are retiring continue to vote, and when the political incentives of the outgoing Congress differ from those of the incoming one. This year, that period will be unusually crowded, because Congress left Washington without finishing its biggest jobs, and because the first hard deadline arrives only about a month after it returns.
The most immediate deadline is 11 December 2026, when the current continuing resolution, the stopgap funding law that keeps federal agencies operating, expires. That law, House Resolution 6500, now Public Law 119-103, was approved by the House by three hundred and seventy votes to forty-eight on 1 September and signed by President Donald Trump on 2 September, after the Senate had backed it by ninety votes to six. It funds agencies at current levels through the end of 11 December. If Congress does not act by then, a funding gap would begin the next day, Saturday, 12 December, which would change how a shutdown would look at first, because a weekend start affects which offices are open and which services are immediately visible to the public. No shutdown is in effect at the time of writing, and the question is not whether funding exists today, but whether it will exist after 11 December.
The scale of the unfinished work is large. Twelve full-year appropriations bills for fiscal year 2027, which began on 1 October, remain unfinished. The House Appropriations Committee has advanced all twelve draft bills, but passing them through both chambers, reconciling differences, and securing the president’s signature in a few legislative weeks is a formidable task. Alongside funding, Congress must deal with the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2027, the Water Resources Development Act, portions of the Farm Bill that expired on 30 September, surface transportation programmes, several healthcare programmes, and other expiring authorities. Each of those items has its own supporters, its own complications, and its own deadline, and they will all compete for the same limited floor time.
Congress Lame Duck Session 2026 and the December 11 Funding Deadline
The central choice on funding, as described in analyses published before the return, is between three broad architectures, and the choice will shape the rest of the session. Congress could pass most or all of the twelve spending bills as a single omnibus package, or as several smaller minibus packages, funding agencies for the full year through 30 September 2027. It could pass another short continuing resolution into early 2027, keeping agencies open but moving the fight into the new Congress. Or it could adopt a hybrid approach, funding some agencies for the full year and extending the rest on a temporary basis. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from New York, has publicly said he favours doing the appropriations bills during the lame-duck period, a position that points toward the omnibus or minibus route, although his ability to deliver that outcome will depend on the election result and on negotiations with Republican leaders and with the White House.
The main sticking point, according to the same analyses, is defence spending. The Trump administration has requested a record defence budget of about one point five trillion dollars, a figure that Senate Democrats oppose, and that disagreement, combined with disputes over spending levels, policy riders, healthcare provisions and the scope of administration authorities, could stall a deal. If the parties cannot resolve those disputes before 11 December, a partial government shutdown remains possible, a warning that has been repeated in law-firm briefings and in independent analyses. That warning is not a prediction, and it should not be read as one. It is a statement about risk: that a deadline, a crowded calendar, and unresolved disagreements create a realistic possibility of a lapse, even if most participants would prefer to avoid one, and even if past Congresses have often found a last-minute compromise.
The history of recent funding fights adds weight to that caution. Congress has already experienced two record-long shutdowns in the past year, according to one account cited in election coverage, and the memory of those shutdowns, with their effects on federal workers, national parks, airports, benefit offices and public services, is likely to influence negotiations. At the same time, the fact that a shutdown was averted in September, when Congress finished its stopgap work a full month early, shows that agreement is possible when the political will exists. Whether that will exists in the lame-duck session will depend, in part, on the midterm result, which changes bargaining power in January, and in part on whether leaders in both parties see more advantage in a deal now or in leaving the fight to the new Congress.
NDAA, WRDA, Farm Bill and Other Year-End Bills
The National Defense Authorization Act, known as the NDAA, is one of the most important items on the lame-duck agenda, and one of the most complicated. The Act sets policy for the Pentagon, including pay, programmes and authorities, and Congress has passed one every year for more than six decades. This year, the House passed its version, House Resolution 8800, on 22 July by two hundred and sixteen votes to two hundred and twelve, and the Senate received it on 14 September. The Senate has not passed its own version: a cloture vote on 14 July on the motion to proceed to its companion bill, Senate Bill 4784, failed by fifty votes to forty-six, and a motion to reconsider remains pending. Before the NDAA can become law, the Senate must act and the two chambers must agree on a single text, which is expected to come together as a compromise negotiated by Armed Services Committee leaders during the lame-duck session.
That compromise will contain provisions relevant to export controls, sanctions, supply-chain security, software and technology, and foreign investment, among other areas, and many of those provisions could be narrowed, expanded or dropped in the final text. The NDAA competes for floor time with government funding, and its fate is therefore linked to the funding negotiations: if funding talks consume the calendar, the NDAA may be rushed, attached to another vehicle, or left for the new Congress, although leaders in both parties have historically treated its annual passage as a priority. The same logic applies to the Water Resources Development Act, known as WRDA, which authorises water infrastructure projects, and to permitting reform legislation, which has been discussed as a possible component of a year-end package but has not yet been agreed in a form that can pass both chambers.
The Farm Bill presents a different kind of deadline. The previous farm legislation expired on 30 September, covering crop programmes, nutrition programmes including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and a range of agricultural supports. If Congress does not act by 31 December, farm programmes could revert to permanent law written in the nineteen-thirties and nineteen-forties, a prospect that is widely described as unworkable and that creates pressure for at least a temporary extension, if not a full reauthorisation. Surface transportation programmes, portions of which also require action, and healthcare extenders, including physician payment, safety-net, public health and hospital provisions, add further layers. The Community Health Center Fund, for example, is due to expire on 31 December, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families is funded through the same date, creating a natural, if crowded, legislative vehicle for action in December.
Politics of the Lame Duck: Who Gains, Who Loses, and What to Watch
The politics of the lame-duck session will be shaped, first and foremost, by the midterm elections whose results were not yet known at the time of writing. This article therefore makes no claim about who won control of either chamber, and any discussion of leverage in the lame duck must be read with that caveat. If the outgoing majority retains control, it may seek to lock in its priorities before the new Congress is seated. If the balance shifts, the outgoing majority may seek to complete as much as possible while it still holds power, while the incoming majority may prefer to delay major decisions until January, when it can shape them on its own terms. Members who have lost their seats, meanwhile, may vote differently from members who will return, because they no longer face the same electoral consequences, a dynamic that gives the term lame duck its meaning and its unpredictability.
Beyond the election, several practical factors will determine what actually passes. The first is time. The session is expected to run from the week of 9 November until Christmas, with a Thanksgiving break, leaving roughly four legislative weeks to complete work that would normally take months. The second is procedure. In the Senate, most appropriations bills require sixty votes to advance, which means bipartisan support is necessary even when one party holds a majority, and that requirement gives the minority significant leverage over spending levels and policy riders. The third is the White House. Any bill that passes Congress must be signed by the president, or must command a veto-proof majority, and the administration’s priorities on defence, on healthcare, and on its own authorities will therefore shape the final text, whether through negotiation or through the threat of a veto.
For the public, the most useful way to follow the lame-duck session is to watch a small set of dates and decisions, rather than trying to track every bill. The first is 11 December, the funding deadline, and whether Congress passes full-year bills, a short extension, or nothing at all by then. The second is the fate of the NDAA, and whether a compromise text emerges from the Armed Services Committees. The third is whether farm, healthcare and transportation extenders are included in a year-end package, and whether the 31 December expirations are addressed before they take effect. If those three questions are answered, the broad shape of the session will be clear, even if many details remain to be filled in. If they are not answered by mid-December, the risk of a partial shutdown, and of a series of short extensions into the new year, will rise, and the new Congress will inherit a calendar that is already crowded before it has even begun.
Sources
USN reviewed reporting from multiple outlets for this story. Read more from Holland & Knight (https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2026/10/beyond-the-midterms-congress-faces-converging-year-end-deadlines), No Labels (https://nolabels.org/the-latest/the-2026-lame-duck-session-what-congress-still-has-to-pass-after-the-midterms/) and LexBlog (https://www.lexblog.com/2026/11/02/congress-returns-national-security-and-trade-provisions-to-watch-in-the-fy2027-ndaa/).