Why It Matters
Congress routinely defers its most consequential fiscal decisions to post-election lame duck sessions. A Congressional Research Service (CRS) report examining appropriations measures across three decades documents this pattern, which carries immediate stakes for the Trump administration and the 119th Congress: the incoming Congress inherited an unfinished appropriations agenda from the lame duck session that concluded in January 2025, and has been operating under a full-year continuing resolution rather than individually crafted spending bills.
The Big Picture
The CRS report reviews appropriations during lame duck sessions (103rd–118th Congresses) for odd fiscal years from 1995 to 2025. Fifteen of the 16 Congresses studied held post-election sessions, with only the 104th Congress skipping one after the 1996 election.
Across those 15 lame duck sessions, lawmakers enacted 49 regular appropriations measures during the sessions themselves, 51 before them, and 84 after. The pattern reveals deep inconsistency: in 10 of the 15 sessions, no regular appropriations bills were enacted during the lame duck period at all. Three fiscal years saw complete legislative failure during lame duck and pre-lame duck phases, forcing the incoming Congress to shoulder the entire appropriations burden. These occurred in fiscal years 2011, 2013, and 2025.
At least one continuing resolution has been enacted for every fiscal year since fiscal year 1998. Across all 15 lame duck sessions covered in the report, 26 continuing resolutions were enacted during lame duck sessions, 36 before, and 10 after.
The 118th Congress's lame duck session enacted only one continuing resolution (Division A of P.L. 118-158), pushing all 12 regular fiscal year 2025 appropriations bills to the 119th Congress. Those bills were ultimately resolved through a full-year continuing resolution (P.L. 119-4) enacted March 15, 2025.
The Bottom Line
The recurring deferral of spending decisions to incoming Congresses or to continuing resolutions signals that lame duck sessions are rarely the forum where appropriations disputes are resolved. The Trump administration's reliance on a full-year continuing resolution reflects a broader structural problem: post-election sessions lack the political incentive or legislative capacity to finalize spending bills, leaving new administrations and Congresses to inherit unfinished work or operate under temporary funding mechanisms indefinitely.
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