Incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is planning to have the chamber in session for 10 straight weeks to start the new year. In 2025, the Senate is scheduled to be in session for 179 days compared to 136 for the House. In comparison, the Senate was only in session for 102 days in 2024. Here’s what you can expect for the year ahead.

Senate confirmation battles

Confirmation hearings are set to take place as the new Congress begins. Of the 4,000 political positions in the federal government, more than 1,000 of these positions, including Cabinet secretaries and heads of agencies, deputy secretaries, assistant secretaries, and ambassadors require Senate confirmation. 

Before the Senate left for the holidays, Cabinet nominees began meeting with senators in preparation for their confirmation hearings. 

The Senate Armed Services Committee has scheduled a confirmation hearing for Jan. 14 for Pete Hegseth, Trump’s embattled nominee to become secretary of defense.

Hegseth has faced allegations regarding his workplace behavior, drinking habits, and treatment of women, including a sexual assault accusation from 2017, which he has denied. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) recently told NBC’s Meet the Press that Hegseth pledged to “release her from the [nondisclosure] agreement.”

It’s unclear whether Hegseth’s accuser would be willing to publicly come forward, but the confirmation fight could resemble the battle over Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination that rocked the Senate in 2018. The conservative judge was accused by Christine Blasey Ford of sexual assault at a high school party decades earlier, an allegation Kavanaugh vehemently denied. 

All eyes will also be on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to become secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. His views on agriculture, abortion, and vaccines have drawn questions from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination to become the national intelligence director could also face scrutiny based on past comments about ousted former Syrian President Bashar Assad. Gabbard has staked out a role as an outspoken critic of U.S. military interventions overseas and aid to Ukraine. She has been accused of parroting Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine, and state-run media in Moscow have praised her and even referred to her as a Russian agent.

Other nominees that are expected to have eventful hearings include Trump’s pick for FBI director, Kash Patel, an ally who has railed against the so-called deep state and the president-elect’s political enemies. Former WWE CEO Linda McMahon’s nomination to lead the Education Department could also face controversy after she was accused in a recent lawsuit of failing to stop a WWE ringside announcer from sexually abusing children in the 1980s.

Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), who has been nominated as Trump’s secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, is expected to face questions about her limited experience with immigration policy and an understanding that she would defer that portion of her workload to the White House, according to several Senate sources familiar. The South Dakota governor may also face questions after revealing in her memoir that she shot and killed her 14-month-old puppy Cricket, later saying it was a danger to her family and a regrettable but necessary part of country life.

Border and tax reconciliation bills

Thune is proposing Senate Republicans first act on a proposal to secure the border and raise defense spending, according to senators familiar. 

Graham, who will be chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said Senate Republicans will try to pass a border security bill under budget reconciliation in the first 30 days of Trump’s second term. The process allows the Senate to bypass the typical 60-vote threshold and pass fiscal measures with simple majorities 

The second phase of the plan will occur later in the year and is expected to include a second reconciliation bill to extend the expiring Trump-era tax cuts. The tax cuts enacted in 2017 are expected to expire Dec. 31, 2025, giving Republicans more time to figure out divisions within the party. GOP lawmakers are facing a razor-thin majority in the House, which could be as small as 217-215 for months due to resignations.

Republicans in both chambers already endorsed a similar plan. However, House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris (R-MD) has stressed those plans must include “necessary spending reforms and cuts.” 

“We know that extending the tax cuts is incredibly important but will require some hard decisions to be made on spending reductions in order to control the deficit,” Harris said at a press conference last week.

Government funding

Lawmakers just punted on a full year of government funding and partially funded the government through March 14. Now, lawmakers in both chambers must set line-by-line spending levels across the government when Trump is sworn into office. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said congressional appropriators in both chambers are already engaging in talks to lay out full-year funding bills with the goal of completing them before the mid-March deadline.

Last year, President Joe Biden negotiated a bipartisan two-year budget deal with congressional Republicans that slated nondefense agencies for a modest 1% boost in fiscal 2025. It’s unclear if appropriators will agree to that top-line funding despite that agreement in the wake of Trump’s reelection and promise to slash funding.

Previously, the House passed five of the 12 required annual spending bills. The Senate passed 11 of its 12 bills at the committee level, though none of them were approved on the floor. Now, lawmakers will have to go back to the drawing board once the 119th Congress gavels into session.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), who will be the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee next year, reminded GOP lawmakers that they will need to work in a bipartisan way to finalize spending bills next year when they return. 

“House Republicans will have fewer seats than they do this year, and Senate Republicans will not have 60 members,” Murray said during a press conference last week.

“House Republicans will have fewer seats than they do this year, and Senate Republicans will not have 60 members. Democrats will continue fighting for the investments that matter to families and working people everywhere in this country — on everything from child care to affordable healthcare to clean drinking water and so much more,” she said.