Congress on Friday was in a state of suspended animation, with one foot out the door in the hopes of returning home for the Christmas break, but another foot planted firmly in town just in case there’s no spending deal, and a partial government shutdown happens on Friday.
The House did what it could Thursday, by easily passing a continuing spending resolution to keep the government open until late April.
Normally, the 326-96 vote would be enough, especially with 208 Republicans and 118 Democrats voting to end the drama and skip town.
But in the Senate, there are still hangups. Coal-state Democrats, lead by Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, are pushing for a longer extension of a miners’ healthcare program. The bill passed by the House extends it for just four months.
Manchin stressed over and over on Thursday that he doesn’t want a shutdown. But their complaint raises the prospect that the Senate might struggle to find the 60 votes needed to end debate on the spending bill, or that Manchin and others might stretch out the required votes into Sunday to make his point, which could require votes into next week on a water resources bill.
Federal funding expires at the end of Friday. And while there’s some leeway if the bill could pass early Saturday morning, the prospect of nothing being decided even by next week is creating an aura of uncertainty about exactly when Congress will be free to go.
There are plenty of possible ways out of the jam. One way would be to push ahead, and count on there being enough Senate Democrats to move the bill ahead, a likelihood implied by the strong House vote on Thursday.
Senate leaders could also commit to take up a miners’ healthcare bill early next year, giving Manchin room to drop his opposition and allow the Senate to finish its work Friday.
But as of late Thursday night, Senate aides told the Washington Examiner there was no progress to report.
If Manchin were to drag it out long enough, there could be a need for the House and Senate to pass a short funding extension for a few days, something that could be managed with minimal presence of House lawmakers in a pinch.
As the Senate struggled to figure out its next steps, House Republicans were doing all they could to signal that the jig is up, and that the Senate needs to accept the House bill.
“You’ve all heard the threats from a couple Senate Democrats to shut down the government over the bill,” said AshLee Strong, press secretary for House Speaker Paul Ryan. “For your reference, here’s a quick list of the items in the bill that they’d be blocking if they went that route…”
“Long-sought funding for Flint, Michigan; the full first year of funding for the Cures legislation; needed money for recovery from recent flooding in many states; funds to combat the national opioid epidemic; NYC’s reimbursement for security costs; and of course health benefits for miners so that they don’t expire on Dec. 31,” she said.
Aside from those additions to the funding bill, failure to act by Friday would trigger not a full-scale government shutdown, but a narrow shutdown that would require decisions about which programs to fund and which to put on pause in light of the reduced amount of money the government could access.
Susan Crabtree and Susan Ferrechio contributed
