The possibility of a government shutdown over the omnibus spending bill under negotiation in Congress has lessened, but not disappeared, as both chambers prepare to vote on it next week.
Two opportunities for short shutdowns remain, one on Friday night if the Senate is delayed in approving the stopgap funding measure the House passed Wednesday and another in a week if Congress doesn’t reach final agreement and passage of the year-long omnibus by Dec. 23 at 11:59 p.m.
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“I’m optimistic that we’ll enact a strong omnibus next week,” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said at her Thursday press conference. “On Tuesday, as you know, a bicameral, bipartisan framework was announced. … This crucial step puts us on a path to a year-long government spending bill — well, some of that year has already been eaten up — but ensuring that all agencies get the funding they need to serve the people. The continuing resolution we passed yesterday will ensure that the government stays open through Dec. 23. It’s Friday to Friday, so appropriators have enough time to finish, and we have enough time to finish so that you can go home and celebrate the holidays with your families.”
The timeline
Congressional leaders including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Pelosi, and House Minority Leader Keven McCarthy (R-CA) met with President Joe Biden at the White House on Nov. 29 to determine the path forward on government funding, as the continuing resolution they passed in September was scheduled to run out on Dec. 16. The meeting kicked into gear a bipartisan effort to pass a year-long omnibus funding package, with a year-long CR as a last resort. McCarthy signaled that he did not agree with the trajectory, but McConnell was tentatively on board.
On Tuesday, three of the negotiators on the two appropriations committees said they had reached a top-line agreement after a dayslong impasse over defense versus nondefense spending in the $1.7 trillion package. Senate Appropriations Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Senate Appropriations Ranking Member Richard Shelby (R-AL), and House Appropriations Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) had the framework ready, but the bill still needed several days to finish writing. Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX), who will likely become head of the House Appropriations Committee when the Republicans take the majority next Congress, was absent from the announcement.
Since they needed more time to assemble the bill than possible with the Dec. 16 deadline looming, the House passed a one-week CR to keep government funding at the same levels until Dec. 23. Now, the Senate needs to approve the one-week CR before Friday at 11:59 p.m. to avoid a shutdown.
Next week, the appropriators will release the full text of the omnibus. The Senate will vote on it first, then the House. Members of the House have been advised that the first votes won’t be until Wednesday next week and that they should expect to be in the Capitol on Dec. 23.
Where things stand
Though the negotiators have reached a deal, that doesn’t mean everyone is happy with it. The Senate is supposed to vote on the interim CR on Thursday or Friday, but hard-liners could use parliamentary procedure to stall the vote. The same could happen next week on the omnibus itself.
The bill still lacks details and will include earmarks and other bills that have come up throughout the year. It would fund the remainder of fiscal 2023, which ends on Sept. 30.
McCarthy is the only one of the four leaders who is all-out against a year-long bill. His stance is tied to his tenuous bid for speaker of the House, for which five Republicans have said they could vote as a bloc against him, which would be enough to sink his chances of claiming the gavel due to the GOP’s slim majority. These members are in or closely aligned with the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which has been fighting for months against the lame-duck Democratic Congress deciding a year-long spending bill. Instead, they want another short-term CR that will fund the government until February at the latest, giving the new GOP House majority more sway over the budget.
The only other option Democrats have said they’re open to is a year-long CR that would keep funding at current levels until Sept. 30, but they have emphasized they will try everything to avoid this outcome.
Can anything derail the omnibus?
The omnibus will first have to clear the Senate, where conservative hard-liners lack the votes to derail the legislation but could delay the process.
Members of the “Breakfast Club,” a conservative group of senators led by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), are toying with ways to mount opposition to the bill. The group has been meeting to discuss its grievances with the direction of the Senate GOP since its disappointing performance in the midterm elections.
A number of senators concerned about the omnibus had been huddling over whether to slow down the one-week CR by denying Senate leadership the ability to fast-track the legislation, raising the prospect of a short government shutdown over the weekend.
But the conservative senators cannot ultimately stop the omnibus from proceeding altogether.
Though McConnell said he supports the top-line omnibus numbers, he said the bill needs to be finished in the Senate by the evening of Dec. 22, or else he will join with conservative Republican senators in pushing for a short CR that extends funding into early next year. Given that negotiators have made progress on the omnibus, reportedly reaching an agreement on allocation levels for the 12 spending bills that make up the omnibus on Thursday, the Senate appears on track to pass a full-year deal. If talks fall through and McConnell insists on a short-term CR, Democrats would have to take this deal or risk a shutdown.
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Once the omnibus clears the Senate, the path forward is clearer in the House. Though Democrats currently only have a two-vote majority due to vacant seats, nine centrist GOP lawmakers sided with Democrats in passing the week-long CR and several will likely do so again on the omnibus.
