House Democrats are sounding off against their Republican counterparts with accusations the opposing party is threatening a government shutdown next week unless their conservative demands are met.
Lawmakers have until Nov. 17 to pass some sort of spending bill, after which federal funding will lapse, and the government will enter a temporary shutdown until a deal is made. House Speaker Mike Johnson initially sought to pass all 12 of the House’s annual appropriations bills ahead of that deadline, but those plans hit a snag after two bills were pulled from the schedule this week due to a lack of support among House Republicans.
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Meanwhile, the speaker has yet to unveil his plan for a temporary spending measure to keep the government lights on until those separate appropriations bills can be passed — prompting Democratic leaders to accuse the House GOP of using the impending deadline as a tool to “extract extreme demands.”
“The federal government is once again at risk of shutting down because extreme MAGA Republicans in the House are apparently determined to do just that,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told reporters on Thursday.
Jeffries has repeatedly said Democrats are willing to negotiate a bipartisan spending deal for the next fiscal year, but the New York Democrat remained adamant the only stopgap spending measure his party would accept is a “continuing resolution at the fiscal year 2023 levels.”
In other words: Unless Republicans agree to a clean CR, Democrats won’t help pass a temporary spending deal. That could put Johnson in a bind, especially after his predecessor Rep. Kevin McCarthy was ousted for doing just that.
Johnson has yet to release a plan to avoid a shutdown, and several Republican lawmakers said they haven’t seen a finalized proposal. Democrats are using that to their advantage, criticizing GOP leaders for leading the government “to the brink of another government shutdown” for the second time this year.
“The reason we're here is because they themselves shut down the House Representatives for three weeks,” Democratic Vice Chairman Ted Lieu (D-CA) told reporters on Tuesday. “They own this problem. They caused a delay. They should not inflict this on the American people. I urge them to pass a clean CR.”
Johnson is expected to unveil his proposal for a stopgap spending measure sometime on Thursday. The newly elected House speaker is considering two options: a clean continuing resolution into January, meaning no policy riders attached to it, or a laddered continuing resolution that would extend some appropriations bills into January and the rest into February.
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Democrats have lambasted the proposal of a bifurcated CR, claiming the idea is proof Republicans are working toward a shutdown next week.
“It is very clear that there is an element within their conference who wants a shutdown,” Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (D-CA) said on Tuesday. “That has been very clear from the beginning. They voted against continuing resolutions in the past. They voted against government funding of any kind. And now the strategy that they have devised is to make these bills the most extreme ever acknowledging that they're not going to become law. And that's a failed strategy.”