Republican senators are fast losing patience with Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) inability to muster the votes to avoid a government shutdown at the end of September, and are warning they will take matters into their own hands if the House fails to act by Thursday.
GOP senators fear Congress may stumble into a shutdown if Johnson can’t get a short-term funding measure passed by the end of the week and are ready to work with Senate Democrats to stave off a potential disaster before Election Day.
Unless there’s a breakthrough in the House over the next two days, the Senate is expected to move first by advancing a bill without any controversial policy riders that would fund the government until mid-December.
“It’s becoming a mess. Especially our military — they’re suffering. Even if you do a [continuing resolution], you know they don’t get the money they’d normally get. This whole thing’s a debacle,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said of the stalled funding process.
Senate Republicans say Senate Democrats deserve a heap of blame for not moving any of the regular annual spending bills to the floor, despite most of them having already passed through the Appropriations Committee.
But they’re growing increasingly alarmed that Congress may blunder into a shutdown that hurts their chances of taking back control of the Senate while Johnson battles with House conservatives and defense hawks over the contours of a short-term funding bill.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she thinks Johnson will unveil some kind of funding stopgap by midweek but acknowledged it is anybody’s guess whether it can actually pass the House.
“I’m making no predictions on passage,” she said.
Collins warned that any short-term funding bill would take several days to pass the Senate, indicating senators will need to advance some kind of measure to avert a government shutdown at the start of next week.
Government funding will expire at the stroke of midnight Oct. 1 without action from Congress.
“The problem is, this is a difficult task and it requires a lot of work,” Collins said. “We are working through the anomalies that [Office of Management Budget] has requested, of which there are a number."
“But I am very worried. I don’t think anybody wants a shutdown, but we could slide into a shutdown if we don’t get the work done,” she warned.
Other Republicans say allowing government funding to lapse a few weeks before the presidential election would be a political disaster.
“I don’t like a shutdown, period. Whether close to an election or not, it wastes money. It costs taxpayers more money. They don’t save, they lose. If we’re protecting taxpayer resources, which is supposedly part of our job, we have to find a way to not have a shutdown,” Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said.
Republican and Democratic senators are growing increasingly skeptical about Johnson’s ability to push a bill through the House, given deep divisions in his own conference.
Johnson last week was forced to yank a scheduled vote on a bill that combined a six-month continuing resolution with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of citizenship for voter registration. The measure was considered a nonstarter for Democrats and garnered opposition from multiple corners of the GOP conference.
Senate Republicans say they now expect Johnson to unveil a “clean” continuing resolution, free of controversial policy riders.
But several House conservatives have warned they won’t support any kind of temporary funding measure, which means Johnson will likely have to rely on Democratic votes to get it passed.
He may be reluctant to rely on help from across the aisle, because he will face a tough race for reelection as Speaker if Republicans manage to hang on to their slim House majority in November’s election.
Former President Trump, meanwhile, complicated that calculation further last week when he called on Republican lawmakers to defeat any funding measure that doesn’t include new proof of citizenship requirements for individuals who register to vote.
Johnson and his wife, Kelly, visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home Sunday in Florida, and some GOP aides suspect the Speaker asked Trump for his tacit “blessing” of a short-term government funding bill that does not include a proposal to tighten voter registration rules.
Democrats warn that any language making it tougher for people to register to vote would be a nonstarter in the Senate and would sink any government funding bill to which it’s attached.
“In order to avoid a shutdown, the worse thing our colleagues in the House can do right now is waste time on proposals that don’t have broad bipartisan support,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned on the Senate floor Monday afternoon.
“The Speaker should drop his current proposal and work with both parties on an extension that prioritizes keeping the government open without pushing poison pills,” he urged.
Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said Johnson’s “intention” is to pass a government funding bill this week.
“Hopefully they’ll get it done this week. I know it’s their intention is to do that,” Thune said of his House GOP colleagues. “We got one more week after this week to be able to process it over here, so hopefully they can wrap something up by the end of the week.
Thune said negotiators could add some disaster assistance to the package, which could entice more Republicans to vote for it in the House.
“There has been a lot of conversation between the House and the Senate on the subject. I hope we can execute on getting something done. My assumption is maybe it’s a shorter rather than a longer [continuing resolution],” he added, referring to the likelihood of Congress passing a stopgap measure that would fund the government until December instead of March.
“Hopefully, they’ll execute on something that keeps the government open,” Thune said.
Senate Republicans are signaling they’ll support that measure despite Trump’s demands.
“You get to the point where we have to take this. If [House Republicans] don’t move this week, then I think we do,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said, predicting Schumer will begin to lay the groundwork for the Senate to move first on a stopgap funding measure if House Republicans don't pass a continuing resolution by Wednesday or Thursday.
Schumer warned Monday that a potential shutdown is now only two weeks away and could disrupt an array of vital government services.
“The clock is ticking. If the government shuts down, it will be average Americans who suffer most. A government shutdown means seniors who rely on Social Security could be thrown into chaos as the Social Security Administration limits certain services, like benefit verification or fixing errors in payments,” he warned.