The temporary seven-week funding patch Republicans passed in October to help finish appropriations bills has quickly become a four-week patch.
The House-passed continuing resolution, or CR, would fund the government until Nov. 21. At least five more Senate Democrats would need to vote for the bill, and soon, or lawmakers must restart the process.
Whether the next CR gets pushed back a few weeks or through the beginning of 2026 is a matter of debate among Republicans. But there is a broad belief there will need to be some kind of extension regardless, given that Speaker Mike Johnson has kept the House in recess while the shutdown drags on.
Rep. Tom Cole, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, told NOTUS that there “clearly” needs to be another CR.
“If it were up to me, we’d come back right away,” Cole said in an interview in his Capitol Hill office.
While lighting a cigar, Cole explained his thoughts. He said while he respects leadership’s decision to keep the House away, the time crunch has meant his committee cannot send appropriations bills to the floor. His preference now would be to run funding into mid January, as to not jam members up over the winter holidays. Democrats, specifically Senate Appropriations Ranking Member Patty Murray, originally asked for the CR not to extend into January, Cole said, which he agreed with at the time.
But since Democrats have been firm on their demands for negotiations over Affordable Care Act subsidies, a longer CR is necessary.
“We’re not in a range that we can’t sit and work these things out, but we’ve got to have the focus on appropriations, and the things we’re fighting about now are health care, not appropriations,” Cole said. “They’re not even within the jurisdiction of my committee, but they’re holding up to funding the whole government.”
Reflecting on Republican conference calls since the start of the shutdown, Cole said members are “pretty comfortable” with where things are, especially in light of a few pressure points that President Donald Trump has taken off the table.
“Probably inadvertently — and I think the president’s trying to do the right thing. He’s trying to make sure troops get paid, he’s trying to make sure that people that need WIC get WIC and those sorts of things — but it’s probably taking some of the pressure off,” Cole said.
To update the CR’s deadline, the House would have to return and pass a new version of the bill — if they can agree on the length of funding.
“For God’s sakes-a-livin’, we should at least extend beyond the first of the year,” Sen. Jim Justice said Tuesday.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, citing Democrats’ block of a defense appropriations bill, said “there’s no way” to get all 12 appropriations bills done by the current deadline. And Republican Sen. Steve Daines said the House is “going to have to” come back if lawmakers are “going to get this passed.”
“We’ve got to change the language. November 21st is not enough time. It’s ridiculous,” Daines told NOTUS.
Multiple sources familiar with the matter told NOTUS that while there have been preliminary talks among House Republicans about returning to pass a longer continuing resolution, nothing has been decided, and House GOP leadership is still hopeful that the Senate can pass the original funding measure.
But the party-line tensions responsible for keeping the government closed cloud any hope of serious negotiations on a longer CR or appropriations bills anytime soon. Democrats, whose votes are needed on any funding measure, insist that the House remaining out is the core of the problem.
“My impression is that the House of Representatives is never, ever coming back,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy told reporters Tuesday. “We’re in really uncharted waters, and nothing can happen until the House Republicans return and the Senate Republicans decide to negotiate.”
The point of a CR is to keep the government funded while bipartisan, full-year appropriations bills go through their regular process. The deadline on the current bill was set with the aim of getting more appropriations bills across the finish line by the end of November.
“It’s very hard to get out of a shutdown if the majority party has an unexpected month-long break,” Sen. Brian Schatz told reporters.
Democratic Sen. Andy Kim told reporters Tuesday of his involvement in low-level, informal talks between Democrats and Republicans about reopening the government, but nothing has yielded much fruit. He said he has also spoken with House members from both parties as recently as Tuesday morning.
“I’ll be honest, the ones I talked to want to come back to work, and I think they’re frustrated by this all,” Kim said.
But he added that any talks, whether about appropriations or changing the deadline, need to occur between leaders if they’re going to make headway.
“This really needs to be at the leadership level to get that direction,” Kim said. “And like I said, it needs to be bicameral. So again, Speaker Johnson: Show up to work.”
The general feeling among Republican leadership in both chambers is still that Senate Democrats bear the blame for the shutdown and have the power to open it.
“The great irony is the Democrats who say they want everything to be done, they are the ones eating up the clock,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday morning. “They are preventing that very thing from happening.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Tuesday morning that the House has done its job, and it was still up to the Senate to pass the CR and reopen the government.
“I try not to give the House advice,” Thune said, when asked if it was a mistake for the House to stay out. “They passed a continuing resolution, and we need to pick it up here.”