GAO, Library of Congress avoid cuts in Legislative Branch bill

Source: Roll Call

Posted November 10, 2025 at 6:11am


Senate appropriators Sunday unveiled a roughly $7.3 billion draft fiscal 2026 Legislative Branch appropriations bill, part of a three-bill package that could be paired with a stopgap spending measure in a bid to reopen the government. The bill would maintain funding for both the Government Accountability Office and the Library of Congress, two legislative branch agencies that faced steep cuts in an earlier House version of the proposal.

It would also boost Capitol Police funding to $852.4 million for fiscal 2026, an increase of roughly $46 million over the current fiscal year, as concerns over member security remain elevated. The proposal would be a more than 7 percent increase in total legislative branch funding over the current fiscal year. Not included is language barring the GAO from suing for the release of “impounded” funds without congressional approval, a sticking point in negotiations to advance the package of bills that includes the Military Construction-VA and Agriculture spending proposals.

The language restricting GAO’s authorities appeared in the version that advanced out of the House Appropriations Committee in June, as Republicans were ramping up attacks against the nonpartisan watchdog, which had found that the Trump White House illegally barred the release of appropriated funds.

The proposed restriction on the GAO language was paired with a nearly 50 percent proposed cut to the GAO’s budget that Democrats viewed as an attack on the legislative branch agency. “It is astonishing that for all the talk about finding and rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, that House Republicans would defund the watchdog that is tasked with precisely that role,” said House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., at the time.

Read more: https://rollcall.com/2025/11/10/gao-library-of-congress-avoid-cuts-in-legislative-branch-bill/