Senate leaders are grabbing the steering wheel from embattled Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in hopes of avoiding a wreck in the form of a government shutdown at the end of the week.
Senators in both parties have lost confidence in McCarthy’s ability to move a stopgap funding measure through the House and hope to avoid a disaster by moving first.
On Tuesday, they took the first step forward by advancing their stopgap bill to keep federal funding at current levels until Nov. 17. The legislation would also provide $6.15 billion in new money for Ukraine and $6 billion in new money for disaster relief.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) described it as a “bridge” funding bill to keep the government open another month, buying more time for negotiators to hash out a longer-term funding deal.
“This is not going to be the final proposal for the whole year,” he said.
The Senate plan is to pass the continuing resolution by Thursday or Friday and send it over to the House before government funding technically expires at 11:59 p.m. Saturday.
Senators are betting that if they jam the House right before the deadline, McCarthy will relent and bring it to the House floor, where it would likely pass in a bipartisan vote.
Senate leaders kept the details of the bill secret until shortly before Tuesday’s procedural vote to give potential critics less time to derail it.
Schumer described the measure as a stripped-down stopgap designed to avoid controversy and keep federal departments and agencies operating through next month. He hailed the bipartisan support for the bill in the Senate and challenged McCarthy to put it up for a vote in the House.
“Let us hope that we get as many people on both sides of the aisle voting for this product, and that the House understands that bipartisanship there is the only way to go to avoid a shutdown,” Schumer said shortly before the vote.
Still, to get the bill through the Senate, Democrats may need to make additional concessions.
Several Republican senators told The Hill they would like to see changes to the bill, even though they voted to get onto the legislative vehicle that will carry it forward.
“I voted to get onto the process but I didn’t vote for the final bill, so I do think there will be some changes,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of the Appropriations Committee and Senate GOP leadership team.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who wants to add $16.5 billion to the disaster relief fund, called the amount included in the stopgap “totally inadequate for Floridians.”
Another Republican senator who requested anonymity said some Republican priorities were left out of the bill, without naming which ones.
McCarthy in recent days has vented his frustration over being held hostage by a handful of conservatives who this month derailed consideration of a House Republican-crafted stopgap spending measure, as well as the annual defense appropriations bill.
“This is a whole new concept of individuals that just want to burn the whole place down. That doesn’t work,” McCarthy complained last week.
Senators in both parties think McCarthy will have incentive to bring a Senate-passed stopgap funding measure to the floor later in the week.
They believe that if he saves the country from going through an unpopular government shutdown, he’ll have enough political capital to beat back any move by conservative critics such as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to push through a motion to kick him out of the top leadership job.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) urged GOP colleagues to support the stopgap funding measure, warning a shutdown would be “bad news” for the country and his party.
“Over the years, I’ve been pretty clear in my view that government shutdowns are bad news whichever way you look at them,” he said. “And they hardly ever produce meaningful policy outcomes at the end of the day.
“A government shutdown would be an unnecessary disruption to the important work on the Senate’s agenda. So I would urge each of my colleagues to work this week to avoid one,” he warned.
McCarthy floated the idea Tuesday of meeting with President Biden and negotiating a deal to add to a government funding bill new authority and funding to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, something that could be used to entice House Republican support.
“I’d think it would be very important to have a meeting with the president,” he said. “The president could keep the government open by doing something on the border.”
One House Democrat said Tuesday that the Senate vote would put pressure on McCarthy to bring a consensus stopgap funding measure to the House floor.
“I thought McConnell made a helpful statement today saying he supports it. You basically now have, as I said, the Senate Republicans, Senate Democrats, House Democrats and President Biden on one side, and then the House Republicans on the other. And that we should just pass — whether it’s 30 days or 45 days — just pass a continuing resolution and fund things,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).
Another potential hurdle in the Senate is Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has threatened to delay the measure over Ukraine funding. Paul put congressional leaders “on notice” last week that he “will not consent to expedited passage of any spending measure that provides any more U.S. aid to Ukraine.”
Senators and aides say the Kentucky senator could drag out the floor debate and votes until as late as Sunday, which would put the federal government in a technical shutdown, though most federal government offices are usually closed on Sunday anyway.
Emily Brooks contributed.