As the fight over government funding rages on Capitol Hill, House Republicans are focused on securing partisan policy changes that Democrats have criticized as bungling.
Both chambers are ramping up talks on 12 annual government funding bills after top negotiators reached a bipartisan agreement on how to distribute dollars for year-round spending measures.
But Republicans have said they still intend to push forward with the conservative policy riders they pursued in previous partisan spending proposals, and Democrats don’t think that’s a start to spending talks.
“If there’s a problem, it’s probably around lidar,” said Rep. Chuck Fleischman (R-Tenn.), who heads a subcommittee that estimates the Department of Energy’s full-year spending. Ta. This week I got together with other chairs and Chairman Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana).
“We just talked about trying to get as much money as possible,” Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), the spending cardinal on the subcommittee responsible for funding the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services, said after the meeting.
Earlier this month, Johnson brokered an agreement with Senate Democrats on a maximum funding level for fiscal year 2024, allowing appropriators to begin bicameral talks. But Johnson also said his party would fight to keep its special clause in the bill.
The riders pursued by Republicans include measures targeting diversity initiatives and abortion access.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in remarks to reporters this week that Democrats are “not going to accept Rider.”
“Our leaders said so, I said so, and that’s where we are,” she said. He also noted that Republicans faced difficulties passing some partisan funding bills last year.
“Those cuts are still there,” she said. “So we have to turn things around, keeping in mind that we couldn’t pass the Farm Bill because of the cuts. Democrats and Republicans said no. Democrats or Republicans said no. As a result, four bills were withdrawn from the floor.
House Republicans set an ambitious goal last year of passing all partisan funding bills individually, but leaders have struggled to focus on the bill while navigating razor-thin majorities and divides over spending and abortion. It was difficult to unify the .
Congress is less than five weeks away from early March on the first of two funding deadlines to prevent a partial government shutdown after passing three stopgap funding bills.
Some spending cardinals say they are confident Congress can avoid a funding gaffe, but if more Democratic support is needed to get the bill across the finish line, Johnson’s Conservatives’ staunch resistance to a spending deal could cause headaches for Republican leaders.
House conservatives have repeatedly reduced procedural votes in recent months to pressure leadership to make deep spending cuts, despite pushback from the rest of the chamber.
Some appropriators have already raised the possibility of using workarounds such as the moratorium rule, which would allow the funding bill to be tabled despite conservative efforts to block its consideration. But the result could be even greater Democratic influence.
Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that puts together the housing and transportation funding bill, said Tuesday that the House needs to suspend the rules in order to pass a spending bill within the next week. If there is, he said he thinks the Democratic Party may strengthen its hand. .
This would allow the House to introduce the bill without a procedural vote, but it would require support from two-thirds of the House instead of the usual simple majority threshold.
“To make something happen across the floor, you just have to compromise. So for some things, I think it could work out. But it’s not the ideal way to operate.” Cole told reporters Tuesday when asked about the strategy Republican leaders have had to adopt in recent weeks. “We need to control the chamber through the majority.”
“The stakes are certainly going to be high,” said Rep. Sanford Bishop Jr. (Georgia), the top Democrat on the Agriculture, Rural Development and Food and Drug Administration appropriations subcommittee. It needs to be passed.”
He said he didn’t know if it would affect Democrats’ leverage in negotiations, but added that such a move means “Democrats have to be involved.”
But House Republicans say that doesn’t mean Democrats won’t end up at the deal table as spending talks get into full swing.
“We’re going to have to address these issues,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Florida), who chairs the subcommittee that oversees funding for the State Department and other agencies, said this week. said.
“The advantage is that by passing some of these bills, we can show that we have some votes and we have some support,” he said. “The downside is that we don’t have a majority. What?”
“And the visual of not being able to pass rules on even the basics doesn’t help our influence or the influence of the chairman. That being said, we do have an opportunity to negotiate.” added.
At the same time, some House Republican appropriators say they are starting to identify potential changes that could garner bipartisan support in spending talks. That includes what Fleischman described to reporters this week as “bipartisan and bicameral coalescence” over transformers.
Diaz-Balart also cited the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency, known as UNRWA, as another area of common ground in the negotiations.
“You can see that the White House has discovered the Pacific…They are now freezing funding to UNRWA. No wonder,” Díaz-Balart said in a report to defund UNWRA. he said, pointing to the wording that calls for stricter requirements.
“But you’ll see what happens when you go to negotiations,” he said.
Laura Kelly also contributed.
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