“I think they’re a model for the type of functionality we need,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) told the Washington Examiner.

The appropriation process is one of the most important in Congress, as each funding bill serves as a tool to keep the government open, a constitutional duty given to the legislative branch. 

“It’s doing our job,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said. “It’s the most important thing that we do, I think, is appropriate the money, so I’m glad we’re getting that done.”

Appropriators have passed 8 of the 12 appropriations bills so far in the House, with six having cleared the Senate, ahead of a Jan. 30 funding cliff after a protracted government shutdown last year. It’s the most progress seen on Capitol Hill regarding passing appropriation bills in years, with Congress not having passed all 12 funding bills since fiscal 2024, instead relying on continuing resolutions to keep federal agencies operating.

Even then, the bills were passed after the start of the fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, as two massive omnibuses. Congress has not passed all 12 appropriations bills on time since 1997.

“I think Rosa and Tom Cole are two of the best members of Congress, really take their responsibility seriously,” Khanna continued. “I’ve worked with Tom Cole on increasing funding for food allergies, that’s a cause I care deeply about and NIH funding, so I’m glad that the two of them are working together. I voted for the bill yesterday.”

With the slimmest margin in House history and a slew of absences this week, the majority has been in flux, making it difficult to even pass noncontroversial partisan bills offered by GOP leadership.

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Both members are highly regarded across both caucuses, especially during a time when the process is working as it is intended. 

“Tom Cole, he’s my favorite,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) told the Washington Examiner. “He’s the Numero Uno guy. He does good stuff.”

“Tom Cole is a reasonable person on many things,” Khanna, a progressive Democrat, said.

Cole is not the only one who receives praise. 

“I think if there’s a way for her to get some kind of spending package through to help Americans, she’s gonna figure out how to do it,” Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) said of DeLauro. 

But the working relationship between DeLauro and Cole also does not go unnoticed across Capitol Hill. 

“I do know that [Cole] is somebody that Representative DeLauro has said for years that she is able to work with him,” Balint told the Washington Examiner. “I think she always approaches it as, ‘How do I do the very best under incredibly trying circumstances?’”

The House voted this week to pass a “minibus” that included a Financial Services-General Government bill and a national security and State Department bill that is expected to be taken up by the upper chamber the week of Jan. 26.

Three more funding bills, which cleared the House last week, passed in the Senate on Thursday and are now headed to President Donald Trump’s desk. That batch included funding bills for Commerce, Justice, and Science; Energy and Water; and Interior and Environment.

The first three appropriations bills were passed by Congress last year and signed into law by Trump as part of a deal to end last year’s 43-day government shutdown.

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Still, even as appropriators are seeing relative success in passing half of the appropriations bills out of both chambers of Congress, obstacles lie ahead for the remaining bills.

The bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security was originally supposed to be in the minibus passed this week, but Democrats requested it be removed after the party’s uproar over the shooting of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

“I always say we can be bare knuckle brawlers, and we have to be bare knuckle brawlers, and we also have to be able to make government work for people,” Balint said.

Rachel Schilke contributed to this article.