Republicans have control of Congress for 2 more months. Here’s what they hope to get done.

November 6, 2026 3oliver

Republicans have control of Congress for 2 more months. Here’s what they hope to get done.

A looming shutdown, military funding and a potential impeachment vote are just some of the high-stakes items on the GOP’s agenda before Democrats take over.

Mike Bebernes

Thu, November 5, 2026 at 10:24 PM UTC

6 min read

John Thune + Mike Johnson — Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images, Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Republicans on Capitol Hill are on the clock. They have less than two months left in power before the new, Democrat-led Congress is sworn in and their window of unified control in Washington, D.C., comes to an end. Even as the votes are still being counted, GOP leaders have been putting together plans for what they hope to accomplish before they lose power.

“Our job is nowhere close to being finished yet,” House Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly told attendees at a watch party Tuesday night as Democratic victories piled up.

The period between the November election and the day in early January when new lawmakers are sworn in, often called the “lame duck” session, can be quite productive as lawmakers move with urgency to get things done while they still can. Some of the most important actions taken by Congress in modern history — the legislative response to the Watergate scandal, the Clinton impeachment, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and several Supreme Court confirmations — all happened during various lame duck windows.

Republicans will have a long list of priorities when Congress reconvenes on Monday, but there are also plenty of potential hurdles that could hinder their progress. Here’s a look at what congressional Republicans want to do and some of the possible curveballs that could derail their plans.

What needs to get done

Congress will have two “must-pass” items on its agenda when it gets back to work next week: avoiding another government shutdown and passing an annual defense policy bill. Leaders from both parties say they want to get both bills done, but disagreement on the specifics could make for a bumpy and time-consuming process.

The government will shut down again on Dec. 12 if Congress doesn’t pass a funding bill to keep it open. After enduring the two longest shutdowns in history over the past two years, neither party appears eager to let another one happen. The big point of disagreement could be timing. Republican leaders are reportedly eyeing a bill that would lock in current spending levels for a full year, but Democrats have an incentive to advocate for a short-term bill that sets them up to enact their own spending priorities once they’re in full control of Congress.

Negotiations over the defense budget could be even thornier. The Trump administration has asked Congress for $1.5 trillion in military funding for 2027. Democrats have balked at that number, demanding that the price tag be reduced by hundreds of billions of dollars. Reports suggest that the administration may be open to shrinking its budget request, but landing on a final number that both parties and the president can agree on could prove challenging — particularly if the White House insists on including more funding for the war with Iran.

“I don’t know what [Trump’s] going to want. I don’t know how we’re going to figure out the money. So no, I don’t have easy answers to that,” Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told Politico on Wednesday.

Even if both bills eventually get passed, drawn-out negotiations could eat up precious time and leave little room for Congress to do much else before the end of the year.

Republicans’ ‘Last Supper’

In the wake of Tuesday’s losses, some Republican lawmakers have begun advocating for their party to pass one last major budget bill jam-packed with GOP priorities. To do that, they’d need to use the same process they utilized to pass Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which creates a pathway to circumvent the Senate filibuster and approve legislation without any Democratic votes.

“It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee,” Trump adviser Jason Miller told GOP lawmakers on Wednesday. “You have one job. Get everything on President Trump’s agenda through in the limited days we have.”

Before the election, Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno told reporters that he would push for a “giant” spending package during the lame-duck session if the GOP lost both chambers of Congress.

“It’ll be the Last Supper,” he said.

Actually getting another Republican megabill passed could be a steep challenge. Negotiations over the massive list of complex provisions within the One Big Beautiful Bill took months and consumed big chunks of the congressional calendar.

Republicans may also have a numbers problem. Any bill they put forward would need near-unanimous support within their party in both chambers. That includes outgoing senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas, who have been at odds with the president in the late stages of their time in Congress.

Republicans also have other, less ambitious priorities that could be at risk if they dedicate their time and energy to another huge party-line budget bill. One of those priorities is a bipartisan proposal to overhaul the permitting process for energy projects, which would make it easier to build both renewable and fossil fuel infrastructure. There’s also a sweeping slate of reforms to college sports, a number of Trump-nominated judges awaiting confirmation, cryptocurrency legislation and more that could end up on the GOP’s long to-do list.

Potential curveballs

One of the biggest questions looming over Washington, D.C., since Tuesday is whether any of the Supreme Court’s conservative justices might retire during the lame-duck session. With Democrats pledging to prevent Trump from putting another “right-winger” on the court, this could be a conservative justice’s last chance — potentially for years — to retire with the confidence that their replacement is likely to share their ideology.

Neither of the court’s two oldest justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, has given any indication that they’re considering stepping down — in fact, Alito has reportedly been unequivocal about his plans to stay on the bench. But if one of them did, Republicans would be heavily incentivized to put everything else on the back burner to rush the confirmation of their replacement before Democrats gain the power to block Trump’s nominees for the rest of his presidency.

Republicans’ calendar may also get scrambled by some of their own outgoing members. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who has been a key voice behind the push for disclosures about the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, has said he plans to force a second vote on the issue before he leaves Congress.

Massie has said he’s also planning to introduce articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has faced heavy scrutiny for his role in carrying out the war in Iran. Tillis recently told CBS News that Hegseth faces a “reckoning” when Congress reconvenes next week.

It’s unclear how much support Massie’s impeachment effort has in the House, but even if it failed, it could consume valuable time Republican leaders would rather spend on other priorities. The same would be true of confirmation hearings for a new defense secretary if reports that Trump is considering firing Hegseth prove to be accurate.