Late on the evening of Sept. 26, Hurricane Helene made landfall on the Florida Panhandle. With winds of 140 mph, it was the strongest storm ever to hit that portion of Florida.
The storm then roared north through Georgia and up the spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains. More than 19 inches of rain fell on Chimney Rock, North Carolina. Landslides washed out parts of interstates 26 and 40; Asheville, North Carolina, was cut off from the outside world. Students at Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, North Carolina, were evacuated by helicopter; so were patients and staff at a hospital in Unicoi County, Tennessee.
In Virginia, the small creeks through the Appalachian Trail town of Damascus surged to 4 feet in less than an hour, strong enough to knock homes off their foundations. On the popular Virginia Creeper Trail, 18 trestles were destroyed. In Pulaski County, the New River rose to its highest height ever, sweeping away some buildings in the community of Allisonia. The normal flow of water in the New River as it approaches the hydroelectric dam on Claytor Lake is 3,000 cubic feet per second. During Helene, it was 167,000 feet per second. The floodwaters raged on through Giles County, destroying homes and businesses there, as well.
By the time it was over and officials were able to survey the wreckage, the total damage was estimated at almost $120 billion across six states, which would make Helene the third-costliest Atlantic hurricane on record, just behind Katrina in 2005 and Harvey in 2017.
Nearly three months later, we’re still waiting for Congress to pass a relief bill. This is unusual, but not unheard of. Hurricanes are storms with a specific structure; the congressional response to them is haphazard — and susceptible to political winds. Friday marks the 85th day since Helene hit. Maybe by the time you read this, Congress will have agreed on a disaster relief plan as part of a larger spending package. We thought we had one Wednesday, until President-elect Donald Trump — at the urging of Elon Musk — scuttled the deal. The Trump-Musk objections seem to have nothing to do with disaster relief but, rather, other items in the bill. Still, this marks 85 days of congressional inaction on Helene.
Here’s how that congressional response (or lack thereof) compares to other recent storms:
Hurricane Landfall date Date of relief package Days elapsed Michael Oct. 10, 2018 June 3, 2019 236 Helene Sept. 26, 2024 ??? 85 and counting Sandy Oct. 29, 2012 Jan. 6, 2013 69 Maria Sept. 20, 2017 Oct. 24, 2017 34 Hugo Sept. 22, 1989 Oct. 25, 1989 33 Andrew Aug. 24, 1992 Sept. 18, 1992 25 Harvey Aug. 26, 2017 Sept. 18, 2017 23 Katrina Aug. 29, 2005 Sept. 8, 2005 11 Ian Sept. 28, 2022 Sept. 30, 2022 2
Why the disparities? The short answer: politics. The longer answer: also politics.
Helene had the misfortune to hit when Congress was in an extended fall recess of an election year, when all House members (and a third of the senators) were back home campaigning for re-election. Some in both parties wanted Congress to return to Washington to pass a disaster relief package. JD Vance, then the Republican vice presidential candidate and now vice president-elect, toured flood damage in Damascus in early October and voiced support for such a session. No such session happened. As I write this on Thursday, it’s unclear whether any disaster relief will be passed anytime soon.
The immediate problem is that Trump denounced the continuing resolution before the House that would have funded the government past Friday — and included disaster relief. After that, tenuous Republican support melted away. If you’re a Democrat, you think Republicans are being unreasonable — or, as Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said: They’re acting like “Keystone Kops that couldn’t do a one-car funeral.” If you’re a Republican, you think Trump is standing up against wasteful, unnecessary spending in other parts of that continuing resolution.
That’s a superficial reading of the situation, though. A deeper understanding would go like this:
- House Republicans have only a narrow majority, which means the party is dependent on the right-wing House Freedom Caucus. Without Freedom Caucus support, other House Republicans would need Democratic support to pass any measure — and that’s politically distasteful.
- Congress has long struggled to pass spending measures on time; it hasn’t passed an appropriations measure on time since 1996, according to the Libertarian-themed website Reason. That means it regularly winds up in these deadline situations where it has to pass something, anything, right away or the government will shut down.
Here’s a better way to describe all that: Congress is dysfunctional, regardless of which party is in power.
The state legislature in Richmond is a model of efficiency compared to Congress. The General Assembly operates on a strict schedule; Congress does not. The General Assembly has, in recent years, not completed a budget by the end of its regular session, but we’ve never gotten to the point of a government shutdown in Richmond, either. The General Assembly is a partisan body, but not nearly as partisan as Congress is. State legislators in Richmond are also, by and large, serious-minded people who are there to work. Congress has far too many members who are simply there to showboat in front of the cameras.
In a more perfect world, Congress would have returned to Washington in October, passed whatever was necessary to pass related to disaster relief, then gone back home.
We do not live in a perfect world.
You’ll see from the chart above that, after some storms, Congress has been quick to act. A few times, it hasn’t been, for political reasons. This is one of those.
The campaign recess isn’t the only reason Helene relief has taken so long. Here’s another: Federal spending measures are like Christmas trees. They often have a lot of ornaments attached to them — unrelated budget items.
The relief package for Hurricane Michael took so long because Trump wanted the package to include funding for his border wall. Democrats did not. The compromise eventually called for more border security spending, but no wall. That came when Democrats controlled Congress so Trump didn’t have much negotiating leverage.
We now have a more complicated political landscape: For now, we have a Republican House, a Democratic Senate and a Democratic president, but come Jan. 20 we’ll have a Republican trifecta. That gives Republicans a reason to wait. In early December, the House Freedom Caucus — of which Virginia’s Ben Cline, Bob Good and Morgan Griffith have been members — announced that it preferred to wait to act on disaster relief until Trump is inaugurated for two reasons: They wanted budget cuts from other programs to offset disaster relief, and they also feared that Democrats would use the funding bill to “cement their own unrelated priorities.”
Instead, the disaster relief got included in the continuing resolution to keep the government open and that’s where things went awry once Trump objected to some of the other spending in that resolution.
You’ll notice that this works both ways: With Michael, it was Republicans who wanted spending for a non-Michael item that Democrats didn’t like. With Helene, it’s Democrats who have put things into the overall spending plan that Republicans don’t like.
Money for molasses
If you think Congress is slow as molasses, as the old saying goes, you may be onto something. One of the items that drew unfavorable attention in the continuing resolution dealt with $3 million for inspecting imported molasses.
Fox News commentator Jesse Watters mocked the provision while the agriculture news site Ag Web praised it, and said it was “a provision sought by U.S. sugar producers” who are concerned about Canadian imports. Those sugar producers have also have donated more than $10 million, mostly to Republicans, according to Open Secrets.
On Thursday afternoon, House Republicans released a revised version of the continuing resolution. The molasses inspection provision was still in there.
Is this dysfunction — or simply human nature, and perhaps even good politics?
Some Republicans blasted “pork” in the original measure, but what’s “pork” to one politician is an essential expenditure to another. The political reality is that some House Republicans are going to vote against the continuing resolution, regardless, so some Democratic votes may be necessary for passage — and Democratic votes will definitely be needed in the Senate. Of course, Democrats are going to want something in return. That’s how politics works, especially when there’s divided government. That’s what frustrates purists.
Here, it’s Republicans who felt aggrieved. Last week, it was Democrats. House Republicans inserted an anti-transgender provision into a defense bill. Republicans thought that right and proper; Democrats did not but were in an uncomfortable position because they didn’t want to be seen voting against a defense bill. Rep. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, felt obliged to issue a statement explaining her vote: “While I adamantly oppose this provision, I voted for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025 because of its transformative provisions to improve the quality of life of our servicemembers and military families in Virginia and across the nation.”
The great philosophers known collectively as the Rolling Stones opined on this years ago: “You can’t always get what you want.” In this case, some Republicans think they might be able to, if they just wait a while longer. Others see it quite the opposite; Republican senators representing the Carolinas held a news conference Thursday to demand that disaster relief get passed — now. Sens. Thom Tillis and Ted Budd of North Carolina, along with Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, threatened a filibuster to block adjournment if it wasn’t. “We’ve got people freezing in tents,” Budd said. Added Graham: “If this doesn’t qualify as an emergency, I don’t know what is.”
How much longer will this take? We may find out today. Or not.
Lynchburg’s ‘Mayor Elf’
I write a weekly political newsletter, West of the Capital, that goes out Friday afternoons. This week I’ll address:
- The dynamics at last week’s Republican mass meeting that nominated Luther Cifers for the state Senate seat that Rep.-elect John McGuire is vacating.
- McGuire’s committee assignments.
- Why the mayor of Lynchburg is dressed up as an elf.
- And more!
You can sign up for West of the Capital, or any of our free newsletters, here:
