House Republicans, in their desperate attempt to avert a government shutdown, have reversed course and are considering a three-month stopgap spending bill instead of a six-month extension, but have dropped their demand for stricter voting rules as part of the bill.
Top budget officials have already begun bipartisan talks in both chambers, and senior lawmakers said they expect a continuing resolution would extend the 2024 budget through December but leave out stricter voting eligibility rules demanded by former President Trump.
“The goal here is to get as close to a clean CR as possible, to the bare minimum, with exceptions that both sides can agree to,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla.
“Everyone wants to wait and see what happens with the election, but we are really committed to getting something done before the end of the year.”
It remains unclear when the bill will be released, and negotiators have some details yet to be decided, including questions surrounding so-called “extraordinary events” – referring to changes to this year's spending bill – and whether Congress will address emergency aid for natural disasters as part of the bill.
But congressional aides said they expect House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and his colleagues on the House Appropriations Committee to post the CR text on Sunday, and some House Republican appropriations officials said they want to move quickly, concerned the bill could balloon if the Senate acts first.
“The sooner we get this done, the less risk there is of the Senate bloating the bill,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), a senior appropriations whistleblower.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said she expected the House to act first.
The weekend release of the bill would give House members enough time to consider it and vote on it by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. “I expect that,” DeLauro said when asked by reporters if he expected a vote to take place early next week.
Prime Minister Johnson told reporters that no final decision had been made on the form or scope of any interim funding.
He defended his attempt to pass a six-month funding bill combined with voter registration reform, which died in the full House on Wednesday night, but acknowledged it's time to change course.
“Our objectives were two-fold: to fund our government and to make our elections secure. Last night's bill would have accomplished both. We're disappointed we didn't get across the finish line, so after we get that done, we're going back to the playbook,” Johnson said.
“We have a lot of ideas, a lot of members are talking and having thoughtful discussions, but I haven't made a decision to play yet. There's plenty of time,” he added.
Republicans said they were disappointed that Wednesday's vote failed but acknowledged they were left with few options to avert a government shutdown at the end of the month.
“The speaker was trying to gain as much influence as he could. … But a small group of Republicans decided to join all the Democrats. [and kill it]”So for now, we have lost a lot of negotiating leverage,” Diaz-Balart said.
“It's pretty clear how it's going to play out.”
Of course, this change in strategy is not surprising. Lawmakers in both parties and in both houses had expected the funding fight to end with a “clean” stopgap measure until December that would have strong bipartisan support. Democrats and even some Republicans have said they won't support a stopgap measure until next year, including a voter ID bill called the Protect American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, that would make a government shutdown inevitable.
But if the plan goes ahead, Johnson is sure to face criticism from hard-line conservatives who want to pass legislation extending the budget into next year, and from President Donald Trump, who has urged Republican lawmakers to vote against any spending measures that don't include the SAVE Act.
“This is totally reckless!!” Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told The Hill in a text message when asked if Johnson was moving toward a “clean” three-month stopgap measure.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed to The Hill that House Speaker Johnson has spoken with Trump about the government budget dispute, and the speaker told reporters he plans to meet with the former president on Thursday evening.
But Johnson's transition will surely be a welcome development for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who said Thursday he was confident Johnson would ultimately submit a budget proposal without the controversial SAVE Act because he didn't want to trigger a government shutdown that would jeopardize his party's chances of winning the November election.
“Most Republican members of the House are smart enough to know that if there's a government shutdown, it's going to be a Republican shutdown,” he said. “They realize that Donald Trump has no idea what he's talking about when it comes to legislation.”
Asked if there were any “red lines” he would not cross in negotiations with Johnson, Schumer said, “I'm not going to negotiate in public.”
Senators hope to have the House-passed bill by Wednesday or Thursday of next week and have the bill passed by the full Senate before government funding expires on Monday, Sept. 30.
“I'm hopeful that the House will move to Plan B and give us something to work with,” said Senate Republican Leader John Thune of South Dakota. “If they can come up with something, I expect we'll have a vote early next week in time for us to act.”
Thune and other senators say they are still waiting for the House to get to work on a short-term government funding bill first.
Senate Republicans, in particular, don't want to embarrass Johnson by “blocking” him with a bipartisan, Senate-passed bill before the House acts.
“I think it would be beneficial for everyone if the House moved first,” Thune said.
A Republican aide said Schumer and other congressional leaders, including Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, had “a lot of respect” for Johnson in handling conservatives in the House Republican conference who had called for a six-month continuing resolution along with the SAVE bill.
But after the six-month stopgap measure failed in the House on a 202-220 vote on Wednesday, congressional officials said they expected Johnson to begin negotiations in earnest with Schumer.
Time is running out: Schumer on Thursday filed a stay of proceedings, a legislative tool that could be used to pass a Senate-originated budget bill in the upper chamber next week if the House cannot act.
Such a foolproof option would be a government budget bill that runs through December and does not include any controversial policy addenda or supplementary clauses.
If Johnson cannot pass a budget measure through the House of Commons by Wednesday, the Senate will act without the House of Commons and present its own bill to Parliament before the Sept. 30 deadline.
That would force Johnson to choose between sending the Senate budget bill to a vote in the House of Representatives and passing it with a bipartisan majority, or triggering a government shutdown.
“If the House doesn't come together, we're prepared to move forward,” Schumer told reporters Thursday.
Alice Foley contributed reporting.
