The House of Representatives once again did the minimum in fulfilling its legislative mandate on Tuesday, voting 336-95 to keep funding the government past the deadline on Friday. It passed because of Democrats–209 of them. They did it without a lot of enthusiasm since the approach that Speaker Mike Johnson took on the continuing resolution is unproven and kind of bizarre, but they saved the day nonetheless.
Now it’s the Senate’s turn. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer got the ball rolling Wednesday morning on the first procedural vote to get the CR passed before current funding expires. "I will work with Leader McConnell to see if we can come to an agreement to accelerate this bill's passage,” Schumer said. “If both sides cooperate, there's no reason we can't finish this bill even as soon as today, but we're going to keep working to see what's possible." If they don’t get that agreement, the regular process for debate could push the Senate to the brink of midnight Friday. But it’s likelier they’ll have this all wrapped up by midday Thursday so everyone can leave early for their Thanksgiving week off.
Nobody particularly likes this CR. Johnson chose to double the jeopardy of a future shutdown by having two funding expiration dates in this one resolution: Funding for military and veterans programs, Agriculture and food agencies, and the departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development would expire on Jan. 19, and for the State, Defense, Commerce, Labor, and Health and Human Services departments, among others, funding would expire on Feb. 2. That didn’t go over well with the White House or either party in the Senate initially, but since it doesn’t include the kinds of drastic funding cuts House Republicans have been pushing all year, everyone decided to give Johnson the help.
Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan spoke for just about everyone: “The initial reaction was: It keeps chaos going. Which it does,” she said. “Then we started thinking about it. And what would happen if this didn’t pass.” Hardly a ringing endorsement, but she also recognized that Johnson had to throw the Freedom Caucus a bone, speculating that he adopted the two-step CR so he “could tell his most extreme members that they would have other opportunities to cause problems.”
They’re already plotting those problems, including going back to the tactics they employed in the summer by refusing procedural rule votes to advance bills to the floor. “There is a sentiment that if we can’t fight anything, then let’s just hold up everything,” Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina told Politico.
But those are fights for later. For now, it looks like the Senate will do its job. Even McConnell made a pitch for kumbaya, giving Johnson some backup for accepting Democratic help. “It’s nice to see us working together to prevent a government shutdown,” he said Tuesday after the House passed the CR.
It’s the best deal the Senate, which has bipartisan unity when it comes to the budget and funding level, could hope for at this juncture. While the CR does kick the can to next year, it also gives the Senate time to get its shit together and finish the rest of the appropriations bills it’s been working on. That will give the Senate a stronger bargaining position against the House nihilists in January. They’re going to need it. According to Norman, Johnson told the far-right maniacs he had a plan to, in Politico’s words, “jam the Democratic Senate and cut spending in the full-year funding legislation Congress now has to pass in January and February.”
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