Negotiators on Capitol Hill have three more weeks to come up with a plan to avoid a government shutdown. But they’re already starting to concede that a short-term continuing resolution may be needed to keep the lights on.
Republican leadership, along with some appropriators and many Democrats, seem to be on the same page in wanting a CR which would fund the government at its current levels potentially through November, giving them more time to hammer out a final deal. The top appropriators in both chambers — known colloquially on the Hill as the “four corners” — huddled on Monday.
“We’re making good progress,” Rep. Tom Cole, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, told NOTUS, adding that more progress needs to be made with Democrats this week.
Cole told reporters that he wants a continuing resolution into November with three full-year appropriations bills that the Senate has already passed, and he said he thinks it can be done by the Sept. 30 deadline to avoid a shutdown. Rep. Mike Simpson, a chair of an appropriations subcommittee, told NOTUS on Monday night that he wants a short-term CR — “the shorter term, the better.”
“I’m not expecting much. I know they’re meeting,” Simpson said of negotiations this week. “I would be pleased if an agreement came out, but I don’t know. So I’m putting that in my ‘hope’ category, but hope is not a plan.”
In the meantime, other appropriators on both sides of the Capitol are watching and cautiously hoping for a deal.
“I shouldn’t say what I expect,” Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty told NOTUS. “What I hope is that we can put the obstructionism aside and try to keep moving forward.”
Rep. Mark Alford, another Republican appropriator, said he wants a short-term CR as well.
“Right now, the focus is on reaching a top-line number. I think that’s paramount to all this falling into place,” Alford told NOTUS. “I have full confidence in Tom Cole and Leader Thune to make sure that the top-line number is there so that we can do our work.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democratic appropriator in the House, dismissed the idea there could be a repeat of the way negotiations played out in March during the last government funding showdown — when Republican leadership took control of the process, leading to a CR that all House Democrats opposed.
“Appropriators, we have in the past — we can get these things done,” DeLauro said. “Tom and I have hammered out bills over the last several years. So but look, the timeline is determined by Sept. 30. So it’s really very short.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Monday that Democrats in both chambers are on the same page with what they’d like to see for a funding solution.
“House and Senate Democrats have been in close touch throughout this process, and we will continue to meet with regularity,” he said.
In the upper chamber, where Democratic votes are needed to adopt any resolution or pass a funding bill, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Monday that he supports a short-term CR to keep the cash flowing as bipartisan negotiations continue.
To pass that kind of CR, he said, it would need to include minimal “anomalies,” policy riders or changes to current funding levels.
“I think you want to have it as clean as possible,” Thune said. “And I think it’s in everybody’s interest to do that. And my expectation would be that, you know, the House, which likely originates this, would have it fairly clean.”
But getting even a temporary solution to fund the government is not a walk in the park.
Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin told reporters Monday evening that “there’s more that needs to be part of a short-term CR” besides just extending the current funding levels. She’s generally worried about what she sees as Republicans not bringing Democrats into the loop yet, as other members of her party said last week.
“I’d like to see some negotiations, period,” Baldwin said. “We’re going to need to work in a bipartisan manner to get this done. And right now I haven’t seen a lot of that bipartisan outreach, and that’s concerning me significantly.”
Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican who wants to cut government spending, said he’s not on board with a short-term CR because he doesn’t want an omnibus bill later on. He wants a long-term resolution that extends funding but doesn’t increase spending.
“No short term. It needs to be a full year,” Scott told reporters Monday. “I don’t want to get another omnibus. That’s what we keep doing up here, acting like, ‘Oh, give me a dime.’ And then they don’t do anything, and then we wait till the day before Christmas.”
Any CR would likely start in the House, where Democratic votes aren’t needed as long as all Republicans back the bill. That means House Republicans could, in theory, send the Senate a CR carrying partisan line items that Senate Democrats likely won’t accept.
For the week ahead, lawmakers are buckling in and hoping to get more clarity. It’s still an open question when a short-term CR would end, and that could leave negotiations kicking up against Thanksgiving or the December holidays.
“Hopefully a plan to move forward as quickly as possible,” Republican Sen. Mike Rounds said of his expectations for this week’s negotiations. “So that it’s not a last-second deal where everybody’s getting jammed trying to make a decision on something that is maybe not up to snuff.”