Chastened by last year’s government shutdown and wanting to confront President Obama on better political footing, House Republicans are poised to approve legislation that would fund most government agencies through September and avoid another risky showdown.
House Republican leaders have been holding discussions with rank-and-file members, and have yet to tally a formal whip count of GOP support for the “cromnibus” spending package. But Senior GOP aides believe potential defections will reach no more than 40, with House Democrats providing the rest of the votes. The bipartisan mix is deemed politically acceptable to House Speaker John Boehner, who wants to avoid a poisonous intra-caucus clash only weeks before the new Congress is seated.
“We did a lot of listening. This didn’t just happen overnight,” Boehner, an Ohio Republican, told reporters on Thursday.
Government funding runs out on Thursday, and a House vote on the new cromnibus spending package is expected by Wednesday. The plan then would move to the Senate, where it is expected to pass.
The cromnibus would fund the government through the end of fiscal 2015, except for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration services. The agency would be funded only through early next year, when Republicans assume control of both chambers of Congress. That expanded power, most Republicans believe, will put them in a more favorable position to fight Obama’s executive action affecting 4.1 million illegal immigrants.
Some outside groups and a small but vocal band of congressional conservatives argue that the approach is insufficient to push back against Obama’s “executive amnesty.” They want to fund DHS only on the condition that Obama reverses himself, and to blame the White House and Senate Democrats for shutting down the agency if the legislation is rejected.
Support for the cromnibus might collapse under the weight of criticism from the GOP’s right flank, as has happened before on other issues. But interviews with House Republicans and top aides show that a broad majority of the conference, including many with Tea Party credibility, is opposed to the conservatives’ strategy. Instead, they say it’s better to keep the focus on Obama’s executive overreach and to fight him with the Senate under GOP control.
House Republican sources say the level of support for the cromnibus among committed conservatives is likely to surprise political observers. The plan is the brainchild of incoming House Budget Chairman Tom Price, R-Ga., a conservative stalwart, and it is likely to receive some crucial votes from members of the Alabama delegation, who are usually swayed by Sen. Jeff Sessions on immigration-related matters. The Alabama Republican, an immigration hawk, opposes the cromnibus.
“We want the American people to focus on the problem at hand,” Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., told the Washington Examiner. “If we tie up all of government then the issue becomes: Will there be a government shutdown?”
The 16-day October 2013 government shutdown was a failed attempt by House and Senate Republicans to derail Obamacare and a political disaster for the party. Their poll numbers plummeted, and they were rescued only when voters’ focus shifted to the Affordable Care Act’s rocky rollout after the shutdown ended. A senior House Republican aide described it as “lessons learned.”
Those lessons learned were evident in how Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., described his standalone proposal to rebuke Obama’s executive legalization as unconstitutional. It cleared the House on Thursday, and if it passed the Senate and were signed by the president — neither of which is going to happen — it would succeed in cutting off Obama’s executive legalization.
“The beauty of this bill: It’s not tied to funding,” Yoho said. “It’s not going to shut down the government.”
The House GOP leadership has made subtle, but significant, differences in how it is running the operation to pass the cromnibus, which is being credited with easing the process.
Under then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., members chafed at what they viewed as a top-down approach in which leadership presented the plan that the rank-and-file were expected to follow. Cantor was mentored by Republican leaders during an era when leadership exerted a heavy hand and when doing so was effective. Republicans elected since 2010 aren’t as susceptible to pressure from leadership.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who succeeded Cantor as majority leader, prefers a bottom-up strategy that seeks input from members before moving ahead with a consensus plan. In most cases, the agreed-upon strategy probably wouldn’t be much different. But how members feel about the process, and therefore their buy-in, is more positive, and that helps leaders guide members to a point of agreement that can withstand outside pressure.
Boehner, McCarthy, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and other top leaders have engaged members on that level, and Republicans say it has helped quell the possibility that an eleventh-hour rebellion might sink the cromnibus.
“I’m not sensing any type of uprising,” a House Republican said.
