All Capitol Hill appropriators want to see is the government reopened so they can get back to work and negotiate on the 12 spending bills for the fiscal year, while the House’s top GOP appropriator remains optimistic they can get legislation moving quickly once the chamber is up and running.
In an interview at his Capitol office on Wednesday, Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK) told the Washington Examiner that once the government opens, he thinks appropriators could make “significant progress” on a portion of the dozen necessary bills needed to fund the government before the current continuing resolution ends in late November.
Among them is a minibus sent over by the Senate comprising three bills: Agriculture, Legislative Branch, and Military/Veterans Affairs. Cole said that before the shutdown, appropriators in the House and Senate were in negotiations over those three bills.
“We’re pretty close,” he said. “We could literally wrap them up in about 48 hours.”
He added that the nine remaining bills could be wrapped up by the end of December.
“I have no doubt, if we were focused on our 12 bills, we would get to an agreement pretty quickly,” Cole said. “And we all know how to do it. We all have a track record of doing it.”
The House is on a 48-hour notice to return to Washington and begin working again, whether that’s voting on a new CR, adjusting to the current CR, or moving forward with regular business and appropriations discussions.
House Republicans have confirmed that discussions on a new CR date are ongoing, though a definitive timeline has not been agreed upon yet. Cole expressed that he can see the House voting on a new spending deal until the end of December or into January.
With a possible December deadline, he’s already anticipating some annoyance from GOP members who don’t like to feel “jammed” right before the holidays. And appropriators agree.
“We all agree, now, we want deadlines that are closer, because around Congress, deadlines are like alarm clocks,” Cole quipped. “People wake up about the time they’re supposed to finish, and they extend it further.”
The top GOP appropriator’s comments echo those of the 12 cardinals, or chairmen of the appropriations subcommittees, who all told the Washington Examiner they are frustrated that they are not only in a shutdown but also have to rely on a CR in the first place.
“It’s damaging to Congress in general,” Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) told reporters Wednesday regarding the possibility of more CRs due to the shutdown. “We’re not doing our job. And we need to start doing it.”
Shutdown derailed by Democratic leaders, not Democratic appropriators, Cole says
As the government shutdown surpassed three weeks, it sits as the second-longest shutdown in history, and the longest-ever full shutdown, remaining just a mere 12 days shy of the 35-day record made during the first Trump administration.
Cole and Simpson noted that the appropriations process was further along than it had been in years, with all 12 bills passed out of their respective committees.
But that all got derailed when Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, arrived and the Senate was unable to pass the House-approved CR that extends funding to Nov. 21. The House has been out of session since Sept. 19, with GOP leaders and Cole arguing that you can’t “negotiate against yourself” and they need to wait until the upper chamber does its job.
“We’ve offered them: Let’s just keep the government open, just like it is now. We’re not asking anything from you. We’re not asking you to give anything up. Keep it open,” Cole said. “We’ll negotiate on the other issues you’re concerned about with you — hopefully we can come to a common solution — but don’t punish the American people while we work out our disagreements. It’s just unconscionable.”
Negotiations between the parties appear to be at a standstill as Democrats insist they need a vote on a permanent extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits and the rollback of Medicaid cuts made in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act this summer.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said on Wednesday that Republicans need to “come to the table” to negotiate a “bipartisan spending agreement” before they can discuss the possibility of another continuing resolution. He’s repeatedly used his press conferences over the last four weeks to blame Republicans for failing to negotiate, arguing that Democratic appropriators are “ready, willing, and able” to move forward on spending bills once their healthcare concerns are addressed.
However, Republicans, including Cole, have repeatedly said that Democrats’ healthcare requests are policy-related and do not belong in a discussion on appropriations. Because of the “unrelated set of demands … dumped at the last minute,” Cole said, “every single day” of the shutdown is a “wasted day.”
Notably, he doesn’t blame his Democratic appropriator counterparts but rather Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), with him and other congressional Republicans labeling this the “Schumer Shutdown.”
“The Democrats, literally my counterparts, can’t negotiate with me while their leadership is shutting down the government, because they would be undermining their own leadership,” Cole said. “And I respect that. I understand that they got to work with their leaders, but these are ridiculous demands, and they are things that have nothing to do with the appropriations process or committee.”
“We’re dealing with an irrational and unreasonable negotiation part, not at the appropriations level, where I think my counterparts are very rational and reasonable, but at the leadership level,” he added. “I can tell you, a lot of their members are not comfortable with where they’re at. A lot of their members think this is not something we should be doing.”
Top appropriators lean on bipartisanship for success
Cole’s praise of his Democratic colleagues indicates that the appropriations process requires a different level of working across the aisle, despite the rise of hyperpartisanship, than any other committee on Capitol Hill.
The top four appropriators, Cole, Collins, House ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-MA), and Senate ranking member Patty Murray (D-WA), have to diligently work together in an effort to achieve the tough process of passing 12 appropriations bills across the floor of both chambers. Many of the bills, including one to fund the Labor and Health and Human Services departments, often are “controversial” and require significant time and work across the aisle.
The two top House appropriators repeatedly reference their confidence in the process and in their counterparts’ ability to have “good faith” negotiations. Cole and DeLauro, despite their policy differences, have a long history of working together in the lower chamber, to the point of gaining the sentiment of the “odd couple.”
“Good legislation means recognizing you don’t have to agree on everything, and that the other people have a point of view and that their motivation is good, so we’re pretty good at that on the appropriations,” Cole said.
TOP HOUSE GOP APPROPRIATOR CONCEDES CONGRESS WILL NEED NEW SPENDING DEAL
He insists that appropriators, both Democrats and Republicans, are eager to do their jobs and get back to work.
“They do not want a yearlong continuing resolution,” Cole said of his appropriators. “I can assure you, my Democratic colleagues feel that way, where we agree or disagree or think we want to do our work, and … we all know how to compromise with one another. We all know it’s going to take a bipartisan coalition to pass these appropriations bills.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to DeLauro for comment.
