September 13, 2016 | No Comments
As the Senate grinds toward a bipartisan deal to keep the government open, House Republicans are increasingly resigned to accepting whatever the upper chamber decides to send their way.
The growing fatalism comes as the Senate is on track to pass legislation in the coming days to fund the government through early December — amid chatter that senators could soon leave town shortly for a lengthy recess, effectively forcing the House to either pass the Senate bill or allow a government shutdown weeks before the presidential election. Senate
“If past is prologue, that’s exactly what’s going to happen,” Budget Chairman Tom Price said of the Senate jamming the House.
Senators and aides are still working on an agreement, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took procedural steps Monday to take up legislation that he said would fund the government through Dec. 9, provide new money to combat the Zika virus and fund veterans programs. President Barack Obama and top congressional leaders met Monday to discuss their progress, although Senate leadership aides said on Tuesday that no final deal has been struck.
A spending stopgap is necessary because Congress has yet to send a single appropriations bill to the president’s desk and the fiscal year ends Sept. 30. Some conservatives are pushing for a stopgap — called a “continuing resolution” on the Hill — that maintains current funding levels into next year, in a bid to avoid lame duck action, which they fear would lead to higher spending.
But even members of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus say they see the writing on the wall.
“It’s gonna happen,” said Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va), a Freedom Caucus member who knocked off former Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a 2014 primary. Members of the Freedom Caucus had also hoped to leverage a CR to enact a temporary ban on Syrian refugees, but that effort has yet to gain traction in either chamber.
House Speaker Paul Ryan has yet to formally announce his support for a CR that goes into December, but he is encouraging GOP lawmakers to consider the idea in hopes that Congress could then pass a series of smaller spending packages, known as “mini-buses” in the lame duck, rather than a single, sweeping omnibus bill.
Whether to allow Planned Parenthood-affiliated clinics access to Zika response money remains the biggest hurdle to a bipartisan Senate deal.
House GOP leadership is moving cautiously to try to keep its fractious conference united. But some hard-liners are already threatening to withhold their support of Ryan in the next speaker’s contest.
“It depends on what comes out of this spending [debate],” Brat said. “It’s never about the person. Some people have very tough jobs in this city. I get that. It’s about the numbers. … The budget’s terrible. The economy’s growing at 1 percent.”
Other conservatives said Ryan would have no choice but to accept a Senate-passed bill if it meant the alternative was a politically-damaging government shutdown.
“Whether it’s John Boehner or Paul Ryan, they are in a stacked deck with this rule in the Senate,” Rep. Trent Franks, said of Senate Democrats’ use of the filibuster. The Arizona Republican added that Ryan might have to rely on Democrats to get the bill through the House.
“I don’t blame Speaker Ryan at all,” Franks said. “He’s in an impossible situation. They’re saying to him, sir, what’s the square root of negative two?”
Seung Min Kim and Rachael Bade contributed to this story.