Washington — Both chambers of Congress are set to vote Thursday on a stopgap measure to keep the government funded, aiming to avoid a partial government shutdown that would otherwise take effect Saturday morning.
“There is good news, good news,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor Wednesday night, noting that the chamber had locked in an agreement and expected to pass the continuing resolution to keep the government funded on Thursday.
“We hope that the House will take up this bill before the Friday deadline with bipartisan support,” the New York Democrat said.
After passage in the Senate, the House is expected to take up the bill on Thursday evening. House leadership announced that votes were no longer expected on Friday due to weather conditions, setting up a tight timeline to approve the stopgap measure and send it to the president’s desk.
The legislation would extend funding at current levels for some government agencies through March 1, while others will be extended through March 8. The two-step deadline is an extension of the current deadline originally conceived by House conservatives to avoid a massive omnibus spending bill to fund the government. But many of those members on the Republican conference’s right flank are expected to oppose the stopgap measure to keep the government funded.
Facing opposition from hard right House members, Speaker Mike Johnson is once again in a bind, likely without enough support within his razor-thin GOP majority to approve a funding measure with only Republican votes, or maneuver the chamber through the typical procedural votes to tee it up for final passage. Accordingly, Johnson will again need to rely on Democrats to keep the government funded, so he’s expected to bring up the bill under a move known as a suspension of the rules, which will require the backing of two thirds of the chamber.
The Louisiana Republican faced a nearly identical situation in November. That decision came just weeks after he was elected House speaker to replace former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted for doing the same thing — working across the aisle to keep the government open. But for Johnson, just days into his speakership, enough good will seemed to exist among his conference to hold onto his gavel.
Whether the same holds true this time around remains to be seen.
After a GOP conference meeting on Wednesday, Rep. Dan Bishop, a North Carolina Republican, told reporters that there’s dissatisfaction with the continuing resolution, but he noted that “I haven’t seen the solution to come forward from anybody.”
Another House Republican, Rep. Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota, said that when the continuing resolution comes from the Senate, the House will “be ready.”
“We’ll be ready and it’s going to have to be bipartisan and it’s going to have to be on suspension, I think we know all of those things,” Armstrong said, adding that many Republicans would back the move because “we understand the realities of divided government.”
