As House GOP leaders scramble to finalize a spending agreement, Democrats appear to be lurking in the shadows in case Republicans need to extend a hand across the aisle to avert a government shutdown.
Republican members of the Problem Solvers Caucus are set to meet with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on Wednesday to discuss a possible bipartisan deal on government spending, according to Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE). The conversation comes as spending bills in the House have stalled due to disagreements within the GOP conference just nine days before a government shutdown.
WITH NO CLEAR PATH TO AVOID A SHUTDOWN, HOUSE REPUBLICANS' INTERNAL TENSIONS SPEW INTO THE PUBLIC
“I'm a voice that you got to start working across the aisle,” Bacon said. “You got to anyway because you gotta get the Senate on board.”
The House shot down a vote to begin debate on the annual defense appropriations bill on Tuesday after five Republicans joined all Democrats in sinking the measure, including Reps. Ralph Norman (R-SC), Dan Bishop (R-NC), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Ken Buck (R-CO), and Matt Rosendale (R-MT). The final vote was 212-214, falling short of the majority threshold needed to advance the legislation.
Meanwhile, GOP leaders are also seeking to pass a stopgap spending measure that would avert a government shutdown ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline and give lawmakers 31 extra days to reach a final spending agreement. However, that proposal is also being met with pushback from hard-line conservatives, prompting some centrist Republicans to consider other options.
Republicans and Democrats within the Problem Solvers Caucus have been having “ongoing conversations” about a possible bipartisan deal to fund the government temporarily until a budget is finalized, Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Marc Molinaro (R-NY) confirmed to the Washington Examiner. It’s not yet clear what such a deal would look like, but some GOP members are signaling the two parties could come to an agreement that includes key measures like border security and disaster funding, according to lawmakers involved in the discussions.
However, Republicans have made it clear that such a deal would only be temporary, emphasizing their desire to pass all 12 appropriations bills individually as part of the budgetary process.
“A lot of Republicans want to solve all our spending in a CR; we need to solve that in appropriations bills. But we want to fix the border, [and] we’ve got to have disaster relief,” one GOP lawmaker said. “The spending should be handled mainly by the appropriations, yes. But I think we can do a lot of stuff with this [CR].”
Some Democrats have indicated they’d be willing to negotiate with their GOP colleagues, but only if a final deal maintained current government spending levels and included provisions on Ukraine, disaster funding, and border security, Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (D-CA) said on Tuesday.
“We are happy to work with our Republican colleagues where it meets the needs of the American public,” Aguilar said.
However, the California Democrat expressed some doubt such a deal could be made and warned that when both parties come together on a deal, it often “drives the most extreme members of their conference to coalesce around a really bad bill.” Unless Republicans come to the table willing to compromise, he said, not much can be done.
"We hold out hope there are folks on the other side of the aisle who want to govern,” he said. “We will work with them where we can, but they have given in to the extremists here. And as long as that continues, this is where we're at.”
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Congress has until Sept. 30 to pass the budget for the next fiscal year, after which the government will run out of money and shut down until a deal is made. By then, lawmakers must advance 12 individual appropriations bills in each chamber before sending their final product to the president’s desk for approval, setting the stage for an arduous process as House Republicans and Senate Democrats disagree on top-line spending numbers.
It’s unclear when the House plans to reconvene to vote on the legislation, throwing the House into uncertainty as GOP leaders scramble to unify their party. Members were advised on Tuesday afternoon to keep their schedules “flexible” over the coming days, with a possibility lawmakers may need to meet over the weekend for votes.