WASHINGTON — The big question on Capitol Hill this week is whether Senate Democrats agree to help kick off the appropriations process.

Senate Majority Leader Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has set up a Tuesday test vote on taking up the first fiscal 2026 spending bill, the generally popular measure funding military construction projects and the Department of Veterans Affairs. But this is no normal time and it was not immediately clear if Thune would get the needed Democratic caucus votes to clear the 60-vote threshold needed to break a filibuster on the motion to proceed.

“We are going to need to get appropriations done. That will require some cooperation from Democrats, and hopefully they will be willing to make sure that the government is funded.” Thune said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

Thune rattled off his upcoming legislative to-do list, including appropriations, the annual National Defense Authorization Act and a new Russia sanctions package.

“Russia sanctions is something that is on our agenda, and we’re kind of waiting, working with the White House and coordinating schedules to make sure that we do that at the right time in terms of their negotiations between Russia and Ukraine,” Thune said. “And so there’s a whole series of things, including the appropriation bills that we want to get done, but funding the government has to be done before the end of the fiscal year, which is October the 1st, and so we’ve got to figure out a way to start trying to move appropriation bills.”

The expectation had been that the Senate would begin packaging appropriation bills into small clusters of bills sometimes known as minibuses, but last week’s Senate and House passage of a $9 billion rescissions package with only Republican votes in support has had Democrats expressing mistrust about the entire spending process for the upcoming fiscal year.

One of the reasons the Democrats might not play ball? Remarks by Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast last week. Vought suggested that having more partisanship in the appropriations process would eventually result in a more bipartisan process.

“There is no voter in the country that went to the polls and said, ‘I’m voting for a bipartisan appropriations process,’” the OMB Director said. “The appropriations process has to be less bipartisan.”

“It’s no secret that the path to advancing more of our bills is going to be harder because of the unprecedented, partisan rescissions bill that Republicans just passed,” Senate Appropriations ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., said last Thursday. “It’s a dangerous new precedent. And it poses some hard questions my colleagues across the aisle need to start answering.”

Key Senate hearings for the week include a full committee hearing at the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday looking at drones and public safety, including testimony from the Justice Department and the Homeland Security Department.

On the other side of the Capitol, House appropriators are continuing their markups this week, with three bills headlining the full committee agenda. That includes the measures funding everything from the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency to the Commerce Department and the Justice Department to the State Department.

House floor this week

Meanwhile, the focus on the floor will be on immigration, with a bill expected on he floor that would bolster penalties for illegal entry and reentry into the United States.

There’s also a series of disapproval resolutions that seek to block Biden-era Bureau of Land Management decisions affecting Alaska, Montana and North Dakota. The Government Accountability Office determined last month that all three decisions counted a rules for the purposes of the disapproval process set out in the Congressional Review Act.

Another headline measure in the House, sponsored by Georgia GOP Rep. Mike Collins, would overhaul permitting regulations under the Clean Water Act.

Thune was asked about broader permitting and litigation overhaul efforts during his Fox News Channel appearance that aired Sunday — particularly related to domestic energy projects.

“I am hearing, believe it or not, some interest among Democrats in doing something on permitting reform, because not only is it slowing down and grinding to a halt a lot of conventional energy projects, but there are also renewable projects, things that Democrats support,” Thune said.

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—Aidan Quigley contributed to this report.

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