With just over a week until the government is set to run out of funding on Nov. 17, House Republicans failed to rally around a plan to avoid a shutdown and ended Tuesday more confused about a path forward.
House Republicans started Tuesday with three ideas for a potential continuing resolution, a stopgap funding measure that keeps the government funded at the previous year’s number.
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There was the two-step continuing resolution, also known as a laddered continuing resolution, which would fund individual agencies up to a certain date and then fund other agencies up to a different date. Then, there was a clean continuing resolution until January, which is a normal stopgap measure with no spending cuts or policy riders attached, and lastly, there was negotiating a continuing resolution with the Senate and coming to an agreement that away.
But during a conference meeting on Tuesday, the whole plan fell apart, and confusion ensued.
Members started discussing different plans to keep the government funded, such as passing a conservative continuing resolution similar to the one that failed in September. Some more centrist members wanted a clean continuing resolution, while members of the House Freedom Caucus wanted the laddered approach, according to two sources. After the meeting broke, they were further away from an agreement than when they went in.
Originally, the laddered continuing resolution would have extended four appropriations until December, and the remaining bills would be extended until mid-January. But coming out of the conference, there was still confusion about how this would be successful and if it would work, in addition to a reluctance to try something like this with little time until a shutdown.
The idea was brought up by Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture and a member of the House Freedom Caucus, which has been spearheading the effort to implement this method.
“Sometimes, you can be so cute that it's counterproductive,” said Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK). “I'll support whatever the conference comes to an agreement on as a vehicle to move forward. But, if I understand correctly, Dr. Harris is kind of the brainchild of this one. And he had his challenges with Ag approps, didn't he?”
In conference Tuesday morning, members of the House Freedom Caucus were heavily pushing for the laddered CR to be the continuing resolution the House goes with, while others were pushing for the clean continuing resolution until January.
But there also have been several Republicans who have come out and said they would not vote for a clean continuing resolution, complicating matters even more for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) as he faces his first real test since becoming speaker.
If this laddered continuing resolution proposal had been brought up weeks ago, lawmakers would have time to work out the details, but since the Senate would likely reject it and Johnson would have a tough time winning over enough Republicans in the House to back it, not only is the timing aspect not there, but the House’s leverage is also gone.
“Appropriations process is a huge opportunity for leverage. But obviously, as we have squandered time, our leverage is dissipating,” said Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA), who helped negotiate the last continuing resolution in September. “One of the biggest problems I think that we have is that often people look at what their ultimate goal is and say, 'We're going to do that,' whenever the leverage is not calibrated. That's one of the biggest problems, is you have to calibrate your ask with your leverage. And when those get out of sync, that's when you run into problems.”
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During a press conference and throughout the day on Tuesday, Johnson declined to get into details about what he plans to do regarding a continuing resolution but said they are working “earnestly” to “avoid a government shutdown.”
“We had a very, I would call it a refreshing, constructive family conversation in our House Republican conference meeting. Very deliberate, positive discussions about the many options that are on the table, and we'll be revealing what our plan is in short order,” Johnson said at the press conference.