Key Dem chairwoman opposes bill to automatically avoid shutdowns

The chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), said Tuesday that she opposes legislation designed to prevent future shutdowns by automatically funding the government if lawmakers miss a deadline.

Members of both parties have introduced legislation that would let current funding levels automatically take effect if lawmakers can’t agree to a spending deal on time. The idea has gained momentum in recent days after the record 35-day partial government shutdown.

But Lowey said that approach to effectively enact stopgap measures — known as continuing resolutions — in the face of gridlock risked diminishing lawmakers’ authority over government spending decision.

“While well intentioned, automatic Continuing Resolutions would weaken Congress’ power of the purse, shift power to the President, and make it much harder to fund investments important to working families. Discretionary spending should be subject to annual review by Congress, not indefinite autopilot,” Lowey said in a statement.{mosads}

“I intend to lead a House Appropriations Committee that will work in a bipartisan, collaborative way to responsibly fund the federal government on time. Together, we can prevent future government shutdowns without resorting to fundamental changes in the legislative process that bring with them serious unintended consequences,” she added.

Lowey is a member of the bipartisan, bicameral conference committee tasked with reaching a deal on border security funding by the next government spending deadline on Feb. 15.

The conference committee’s first public meeting is slated for Wednesday.

Some lawmakers, including Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio), are pushing to include their proposals to prevent government shutdowns in any final spending deal that emerges in the coming weeks.

Warner’s bill would automatically fund the government at existing levels while withholding money for the legislative branch and the Executive Office of the President in an effort to motivate lawmakers to reach an agreement.

Portman’s proposal, meanwhile, would start with existing funding levels, but then reduce it by 1 percent after 120 days and again after every subsequent 90 days if lawmakers still haven’t reached a spending deal.

But opposition from Lowey and others will likely be a significant hurdle to including either of those proposals in a final deal.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who represents thousands of Washington-area federal workers, is also skeptical of the idea.

“Frankly, I think a lot of Republicans would like to run government like that for the next 10 years. I’m not a subscriber of that. The Congress ought to do its job,” Hoyer told reporters on Tuesday. “I personally am reticent about automatic bills that, in effect, take Congress out of having to make decisions.”

But other top congressional leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), have expressed interest in the proposals to prevent future shutdowns.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that he not only supported the proposals to prevent future shutdowns, but would “go further” by withholding pay for members of Congress.

And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that he’s open to the proposal as well.

“I don’t like shutdowns. I don’t think they work for anybody and I hope they will be avoided. I’d be open to anything that we could agree on on a bipartisan basis that would make them pretty hard to occur again,” McConnell told reporters less than a week after the last partial shutdown ended.

Beyond Warner and Portman, lawmakers in both parties have introduced a variety of proposals to prevent future shutdowns.

Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.) has introduced a bill similar to Portman’s that would automatically keep government funded with a continuing resolution, but reduce discretionary spending by 2 percent every 60 days absent a deal.

A group of House Democratic freshmen also introduced legislation to automatically keep the government funded, but with other attempts to motivate lawmakers to negotiate. Their bill would prohibit the use of funds for lawmaker travel, require daily quorum calls, and suspend lawmaker pay for the duration of a shutdown.

Separately, a bipartisan trio of freshmen — Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine), Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Max Rose (D-N.Y.) — introduced a bill on Tuesday to withhold pay for members of Congress, the president and vice president during a shutdown.

—Mike Lillis contributed reporting