With college football season in full swing, lawmakers in Congress could take up student athlete compensation issues facing intercollegiate athletics. They could follow last week’s 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks with legislation to address a lapse in surveillance powers. They could try to sort through the thicket of cryptocurrency regulations.

But the safe bet might be on them doing none of that.

The reality is that the House and Senate don’t have a lot on the fall agenda they absolutely must do before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, especially with President Donald Trump having already signed into law a continuing resolution funding the government through Dec. 11.

The House is only expected to be in session for one week before members return to their districts ahead of the elections, and the chamber now appears on track to meet or beat its modern record for the earliest House members to have left in an election year — Sept. 18 in 2014.

The annual Congressional Women’s Softball Game, which pits female members of Congress against members of the Washington press corps ,is still scheduled to take place on Sept. 23, though that will now take place when the House is in recess.

For what little time the two chambers are in session, there should be plenty of trading of political shots between the two parties, and Republicans may look to call more votes that seek to divide the Democratic caucuses.

The immediate business on the Senate calendar is a test vote on a bipartisan cryptocurrency-related market structure measure.

Senate Republicans on Sunday night released another new version of the landmark cryptocurrency legislation that includes strengthened ethics requirements in an effort to attract Democratic support before a crucial procedural vote Tuesday.

“President Trump voluntarily agreed to unprecedented ethics restrictions, holding every federally elected official, judge, and their spouses to some of the toughest ethics restrictions in U.S. history,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., said in a statement announcing the newest substitute amendment.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., had said Sept. 10 that he expected to come up short of the 60 votes needed to advance, though that was before the most recent changes.

“One of the things that we’ve encountered, and this has been unlike any kind thing I’ve seen in my time in public life is this just constant, constant blockade of Senate Democrats against anything that President Trump wants,” said Thune, speaking on Scott Jennings’ radio program from the Republican midterm convention in Dallas.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned in a Sept.9 social media post about the potential dangers of the cryptocurrency legislation stalling out.

“When the Senate returns from August recess, I strongly urge everyone to remain at the negotiating table, agree to the motion to proceed, and continue the legislative process,” Bessent said. “Failing to do so would send a troubling signal to our allies and adversaries alike that America is unwilling to lead on the future of digital assets and willing to forgo enhanced national security tools to combat their misuse.”

Other Senate Republican leadership priorities include legislation designed to address name, image and likeness, or NIL, issues for college athletes. Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairman Ted Cruz of Texas and ranking Democrat Maria Cantwell of Washington were pushing the bill before August recess but time ran out.

Thune said the NIL bill would be second on the to-do list after the cryptocurrency measure.

“I think if we can pass it and send to the House, we’ve got a chance at making law with it,” the South Dakota Republican told Jennings. “And the other thing I’d like to get a vote on in this time we have before everybody breaks to go campaign for the fall elections is permitting reform. I think that’s enormously important, not just as an energy policy issue, but an economic policy issue for our country.”

Bipartisan negotiations over permitting legislation have been going on for years, and industry groups have fretted that if a final deal is not reached before the midterms, Democrats may be unwilling to move such a complex piece of legislation in the lame-duck session if they retake one or both chambers.

The House, meanwhile, could act this week on the bipartisan, Russia sanctions bill named for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., which the Senate passed by a lopsided 86-11 vote in August. Graham was advocating the bill right up until his unexpected death from an aortic tear on July 11.

The measure would impose penalties on the Kremlin and some of those who do business with it for five years after enactment and would extend for the same length of time certain sanctions on Iran.

The House Rules Committee announced last week it plans to take up Monday a rule governing floor consideration of the sanctions measure, which was added to a House-passed childhood education bill. If the committee approves and then the House adopts the rule, it would set the stage for the chamber to vote to send the legislation to Trump’s desk for his signature. Some House Democrats have signaled opposition over the bill ceding too much authority to Trump, but the lead Democratic sponsor in the Senate is making the case for accepting the agreement.

Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal said in an Aug. 30 interview with CBS News that the product was “the result of painstaking, sometimes painful, negotiations” also involving the Trump administration.

Lame duck looms

The results of the midterms will dictate how aggressively the postelection lame-duck agenda will tack, with Democrats likely eager to push matters into calendar year 2027 if they succeed in winning back the majority in Congress, or at least the House.

If both chambers flip, Thune will come under pressure from the White House and his own members to extend the session in order to maximize the number of the president’s nominees who can see confirmation before control of the agenda falls to the Senate Democratic Caucus currently led by Charles E. Schumer of New York.

It will also be an open question how amenable Democrats will be in such a lame-duck session to cutting a deal on the balance of fiscal 2027 appropriations.

Also in question is the health status of Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the former Republican leader, with reports suggesting he could return to the Capitol this week after a three-month absence due to a fall and subsequent pneumonia. McConnell continues to hold a seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee, and he chairs the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.

With just a one vote majority at the committee level, Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, has not scheduled consideration of any of the 12 regular spending bills.

McConnell’s absence also meant the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee was unable to advance the farm bill before August recess.

Collins herself has every incentive to be home in Maine as much as possible, as she ranks among the most vulnerable Republican senators on the ballot this November.

But unlike some members who may take advantage of a slow legislative agenda or political show votes to ditch Washington and be at home, that’s not something that Collins really can do because she maintains the longest active consecutive voting streak from the start of a Senate career in American history, passing the 10,000-vote mark in June.

A recurring feature of the 119th Congress has been votes to disapprove of the president’s handling of any number of foreign policy matters, from the Iran conflict to military action in Venezuela, and Senate Democrats are likely to try to force more such votes before Election Day.

Savannah Behrmann, John T. Bennett, Mark Schoeff Jr., David Jordan, John M. Donnelly and Ryan Kelly contributed to this report.