Spending bill roils Senate GOP leadership battle

The six-bill package, which must be passed by Friday to avoid a partial government shutdown, has drawn fierce criticism from conservatives in both chambers, who are focused on more than 6,000 goals embedded in the package. ing.

The spending bill was initially expected to pass easily, but now faces a bumpy road in the Senate, where political maneuvering amid an ongoing battle between Republican leadership and pro-Trump conservatives. It becomes.

If conservatives drag out the process, they could be forced to close briefly over the weekend.

Senate conservatives are trying to strengthen their policies in the race to replace retiring Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, but McConnell’s top deputy and Senate Republican leader John Thune (SD) is forced into a difficult position.

Thune is in a tight race with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) to become the next Senate Republican leader.

Republican aides and strategists have warned that if Thune helps pass the bill, it could hurt his support among Senate conservatives, a key swing group.

Republican senators familiar with Mr. Cornyn’s behind-the-scenes work say Mr. Cornyn has made a concerted effort to win over conservatives in the Senate and outwit the right-wing Mr. Thune.

“It’s going to be very interesting to see how John Cornyn and John Thune handle this package,” said Brian Darling, a Republican strategist and former Senate aide. “If the other side votes yes, it could make a big difference and move enough votes to make a difference in the Republican leadership race.”

“The pressure on John Cornyn and John Thune is to become more conservative ahead of the presidential election. [leadership] “This is an election to avoid a backlash from conservatives in the caucus who don’t want business as usual,” he said.

Given the whip’s central role in running the Republican chamber, passing the bill without Thune’s help will be a daunting task.

In November, the Senate overwhelmingly passed the minibus spending bill, passing three of the six pending bills by a vote of 82-15, with Messrs. Thune and Cornyn voting in favor.

Since then, the political environment within the Senate Republican Conference has changed significantly.

Former President Trump won a series of presidential primaries and is now considered a certainty as the Republican presidential nominee, and Trump’s main opponent, McConnell, announced last week that he would step down from the party’s leadership at the end of the year.

Senate conservatives are raising their voices and threatening to increase Trump’s power and diminish McConnell’s influence by pressuring McConnell’s potential successors, Thune and Cornyn, to bend to their will. I’m trying to use it.

That’s what happened last month when Senate conservatives erupted into an uproar over a bipartisan border security bill negotiated by Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) with McConnell’s approval.

They made enough of a fuss that McConnell’s leadership team, including National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Steve Daines (Montana), abandoned one compromise on border security after another. Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso of Wyoming and Cornyn followed suit.

Although McConnell and Thune initially supported the border security agreement as the best chance to reform refugee law in the near term, they ultimately voted against it.

Conservatives in the Senate, led by Senate Republican Steering Committee Chairman Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida), are targeting spending measures scheduled to come to the floor this week. are combined. .

It will provide funding to the agriculture, commerce, energy, interior, transportation, housing and urban development sectors, among others.

“No Republican should vote for this bill,” Lee wrote on social media, pointing out the bill’s key policy failures and saying taxpayer funds would be used to prosecute presidential candidates. He pointed out that this does not prohibit people from being sold or used for “mail-order sales.” chemical abortion drugs,” or to enact red flag laws restricting gun ownership.

Scott’s staff counted more than 6,000 spending items in the bill, a tally confirmed by the nonpartisan research group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

“Sen. Schumer just released the text of the first six spending bills he’s going to vote on this week, and it includes 605 pages of earmarks,” Scott wrote ( he wrote on the platform formerly known as Twitter).

Scott highlighted $1 million in funding to build a new environmental justice center in New York City and $1 million in funding for social justice organizations to improve buildings in San Francisco.

He pointed to the money going to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) campaign, saying, “Mr. “It’s not just digging deeper into the debts of people.”

Scott said last week that he was “seriously considering” running for Senate Republican leader. He challenged McConnell after the 2022 midterm elections, but lost 37-10.

Darling, the Republican strategist, said the thousands of items included in the spending package would make the bill a lightning rod for leadership contests.

“Even non-controversial packaging can become controversial if it’s stuffed with marks specifically for New York that benefit America. [Democratic] “Majority leadership,” he said, arguing that this “started the flow of appropriations again” and “set a precedent for Congress to agree to authorize large packages of wasteful appropriations.”

Senate Republicans voted in April 2021 to maintain Senate Republican conference rules that prohibit members from making appropriation requests.

But the vote is not binding, and some senators, including Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), have vowed to continue pushing for funding for their projects, making the vote a key issue. It became symbolic.

Steve Ellis, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said about half of the 6,000 grants included in the package are included in funding for the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“Appropriations are coming back in a big way and are accepted by both parties,” he said, adding that the spending bill included in the fiscal year 2024 spending bill should be expected once Congressional leaders release a second spending package later this month. He predicted that the total budget number could increase dramatically.

“We do not know how many items will be included in the remaining six bills, but Labor is[Health and Human Services] “This was a traditionally focused bill,” he said.

Ellis said that while conservatives in the Senate are warning colleagues running to become the next Republican leader not to support this spending policy, many other rank-and-file Republican senators are refusing to support funding for pet projects. He pointed out that he was requesting.

“A lot of Republicans have agendas in their policies,” he said. “At the end of the day, this is a private, secret ballot for Republican leaders, so people can say one thing and vote for another.”