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The Congressional Review Act (CRA) has played a meaningful role in the development of regulatory policy at the beginning of President Trump’s second term in office. The CRA offers Congress a fast-track pathway to overturning federal regulations. A member of Congress can introduce a resolution of disapproval targeting a single regulation at any time. If the resolution receives a simple majority vote in both houses of Congress and a presidential signature, the targeted regulation is nullified effective immediately.
In order to ensure appropriate time for Congressional oversight, the law also establishes a lookback window: regulations issued within the last 60 working days—either legislative days in the House or session days in the Senate—of a session of Congress are again made available for review at the beginning of the subsequent session of Congress. Upon the beginning of the new Congress, members have, effectively, 60 calendar days to introduce resolutions of disapproval.
As a result of the lookback window, the CRA is most potent in the period immediately following a presidential transition, when the presidency and both houses of Congress are controlled by a different party than the outgoing president. The lookback window offers a new Congress the opportunity to overturn regulations issued by the outgoing president without the threat of a presidential veto from a president trying to protect their administration’s regulations.
In the 2024 election, President Trump and the Republican Party won control of the presidency from President Biden and his Democratic administration; the Republican Party also regained unified control of Congress. These elections ensured that the key conditions for the most significant CRA usage were in place for the beginning of the 119th Congress.
In this piece, I discuss the current 119th Congress’s use of the CRA in the context of past sessions of Congress. I then specifically compare the 119th Congress to the 115th Congress. These Congresses offer a unique comparison because in both the 119th Congress and the 115th Congress, Republicans enjoy unified control of the legislature, and Donald Trump holds the presidency. I also highlight significant procedural developments in the use of the CRA, and I highlight what trends may develop moving forward.