Congressional Outlook: A Week of Partisan Votes and Bad Blood

Even when senators don't intend to be controversial, they manage to find their way there anyway.

No one can say quite how it happened, but legislation that was supposed to represent a Kumbaya moment in the Senate last week appears to be headed in the opposite direction. A bipartisan bill to boost aid to victims of human trafficking remains stalled over—depending which side you ask—either unnoticed or ignored language banning funding for abortion services.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. There was a widely supported bill on the floor, and lawmakers were busy prepping for an intense budget debate set to begin in both chambers next week. But now, the trafficking bill holdup has thrown into question the timing for a nail-biter of a vote to confirm Loretta Lynch, President Obama's nominee for attorney general, with a fresh crop of bad feelings over the trafficking bill.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had said he expected to bring Lynch up for a vote this week. But on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, McConnell cast doubt on whether that would happen.

"This will have an impact on the timing of considering a new attorney general," McConnell said. "I had hoped to turn to her next week, but if we can't finish the trafficking bill, she will be put off again."

Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, quickly attacked McConnell's plan.

"There is nothing stopping the Senate from confirming Lynch and continuing to debate the trafficking bill this week, except Senator McConnell's unwillingness to bring her nomination up for a vote," Jentleson said in a statement. "Senator McConnell is choosing to delay Lynch's confirmation despite having already kept her waiting longer than any attorney general nominee in three decades."

The trafficking measure will face a roll call Tuesday that will require 60 votes to continue debate. Reid says Democrats won't support the motion because the legislation will not allow a fund for trafficking victims to cover abortion services except in rape or incest cases. If that language were to be stripped from the bill, he says, Democrats would support it.

But it doesn't look as if that's going to happen. Senate Republicans are accusing Democrats of shifting their position midstream after all of the Judiciary Committee Democrats voted in favor of the legislation. Democrats say the abortion language was slipped into the bill without the knowledge of committee aides. Everyone is mad.

Whenever she does come up for a vote, Lynch is expected to squeak through the Senate with Democrats' support and a small handful of Republicans already pledging to vote in favor. But the vote also will bring a familiar litany of complaints from Republicans toward the Obama administration for executive actions they dislike on immigration. And Lynch will begin her term with only a mild vote of confidence from the Senate.

The House, meanwhile, will return from a much-needed break after a bruising battle over funding the Homeland Security Department that left many on the right upset. House members will pick up where they left off two weeks ago with a few noncontroversial energy bills. Those votes were postponed after House members adjourned a day early to avoid a major snowstorm in Washington.

DEFENSE

In the wake of 47 Senate Republicans' bold move last week, sending an open letter to Iranian leaders that could strain ongoing nuclear talks, House members will have their chance to weigh in. The House Foreign Affairs Committee will hear testimony from administration officials about the negotiations with Iran to halt its nuclear-weapons program. They will ask whether the nuclear deal will actually quell Iran's weapons program or allow the country to go forward. Testifying will be Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Adam Szubin, the acting Treasury undersecretary in charge of the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

Read more about Congress' agenda this week on National Journal. 

Clare Foran, Jason Plautz, Brendan Sasso, James Oliphant, and Sam Baker contributed to this article.