House adjourns for 2015

The House formally adjourned early Friday afternoon for the year, hours after passing a bipartisan spending package.

Lawmakers won’t be back until January 2016 for election-year legislating. In its first week back, the House is slated to consider the Senate-passed reconciliation bill to repeal ObamaCare and defund Planned Parenthood.

“It’s going be an important win to put that bill on Barack Obama’s desk, and it’s going to prove to the country that the one thing missing if he doesn’t sign it is a Republican president,” Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) told reporters off the House floor after the last vote on Friday. 

{mosads}GOP leaders say they want to advance all 12 individual appropriations bills instead of resorting to a massive, catch-all spending package like the $1.1 trillion omnibus Congress cleared on Friday.

The House passed six fiscal 2016 spending bills this year using an unlimited amendment process. But the process screeched to a halt in July when Democrats began offering amendments related to the display of the Confederate flag in the aftermath of the shooting at a historically black church in Charleston, S.C.

2015 was a tumultuous year in the House, most notably when now-former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced his retirement a day after Pope Francis addressed Congress.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) ultimately succeeded Boehner on Oct. 29, after a month of uncertainty as to who would become the next Speaker.

Congress began the year with debate continuing from last year’s omnibus spending package that only temporarily funded the Department of Homeland Security, as conservatives demanded defunding President Obama’s executive actions on immigration. Those executive actions have since stalled in the judicial process.

Lawmakers did send multiple major pieces of legislation to Obama’s desk, including an overhaul of No Child Left Behind, a permanent fix to Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors, trade promotion authority, and a five-year highway funding bill.

The House is scheduled to return for votes on Jan. 5. Meanwhile, the Senate isn’t set to return until Jan. 11, a day before Obama’s final State of the Union address.