Political jockeying in Washington has resulted in gridlock on the budget and most major legislation, with few expectations of resolving many of them before the November election.
The new fiscal year began Oct. 1 and none of the federal appropriations bills have been passed, the government is operating on a continuing resolution. It is highly unusual for all 13 appropriations bills to be in limbo.
"At this point nobody is seriously expecting a HHS [ Health and Human Services ] bill before December, if then," said Terje Anderson, executive director of the National Association of People With AIDS ( NAPWA ) . "It's a bad situation, there is clearly not the commitment to increase funding" for AIDS.
"Nobody knows any more than they did three weeks ago," said Bill Arnold, with the ADAP Working Group. The immediate impact is that if they don't know their budgets, state agencies will not schedule planning meetings on how to allocate Ryan White funding for AIDS services, and the money may not be spent in the areas of greatest need.
Arnold fears that the Florida and Texas ADAPs [ AIDS Drug Assistance Programs ] "will go belly up in January" or maybe even earlier.
"It is going to take a real act of political will on the part of the community to insist that there be increases, even for ADAP," says Anderson. But, "What happens to the appropriations process if on November 15th, we start bombing Baghdad?" he asks. "What does that do to the availability of funds?"
Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign ( HRC ) , does not think that there will be a lame duck session of Congress. She expects a longer term continuing resolution to fund government operations into February, when perhaps a new Congress might resolve those issues.
She attributes it to what experienced congressional observers call "a more partisan, a more heated, and a less conducive environment for getting anything done" than has occurred in decades. That atmosphere is based upon disagreements over Iraq, homeland security, and the razor thin margins of control in both houses where neither side is willing to give the other a political victory on legislation for the election.
"It doesn't look like there will be any movement at all" on GLBT issues such as hate crimes legislation or employment protection, said Stachelberg. HRC had always realized the difficulty of getting stand alone legislation through the House, where Republican leadership is opposed to bringing the issues to a vote, but it had hoped to attach one or both measures to appropriations bills and get them enacted through that route. An omnibus continuing resolution severely limits that option.
Social conservatives in the House historically have seen the appropriations bill for the District of Columbia is a vehicle by which to impose their will on the local jurisdiction on matters such as adoption by gays, domestic partners benefits, needle exchange, and medical marijuana. Liberals have opposed and lately tried to roll back those amendments. This year, both sides called a truce, agreeing to the terms that passed last year.
The best guess for when Congress will leave town is Oct. 18. What they do or do not accomplish between now and then is anybody's guess.