House Republican leadership is in a race against time to finalize some sort of spending deal before the clock strikes midnight and a government shutdown is scheduled to take place, halting funding for several government agencies.
GOP leaders met behind closed doors on Thursday night after their latest funding package failed to pass the lower chamber due to objections from House Democrats and over thirty members of the Republican conference. Now Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) must return to the drawing board to craft some sort of spending agreement that can appease his right flank while also gaining the approval of President-elect Donald Trump.
“We will regroup, and we will come up with another solution. So stay tuned,” Johnson told reporters after the vote failed.
However, Johnson emerged from his office hours later with no new proposal — and a narrowing timeline to get a deal passed before the deadline.
When asked if there would be another bill ready for the House floor by Friday, Johnson merely said: “We’ll see.”
Meanwhile, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) assured they would “keep trying.” Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) told reporters that lawmakers would “work through the night to figure out a plan moving forward.”
After scrapping their initial funding package that was negotiated by both parties in the House and Senate, House Republican leaders put forward their own proposal that sought to keep the government open while also including a demand from Trump to suspend the debt ceiling for two years — a provision that caught many lawmakers off guard, especially deficit hawks in the House who are staunchly opposed to raising the debt limit.
The House ultimately shot down the Trump-backed CR, with 38 Republicans joining nearly all Democrats in opposing the measure.
Conservative members of the House Freedom Caucus held their own closed-door meeting on Thursday night to concoct a new funding proposal, emerging with a plan to present options to the speaker on Friday to negotiate a new deal.
“We haven’t landed on anything yet,” Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) said. “I think we want to give them a couple — two to three options that we would be willing to vote for.”
It’s not entirely clear what those proposals would include. But it’s likely none would involve a provision related to the debt ceiling.
Instead, Burlison said the House could deal with the debt ceiling when they return in early January before Trump is inaugurated, satisfying the president-elect’s demand to relieve him from dealing with it.
By omitting the debt ceiling, some Republicans say it could appease enough conservatives to support the package.
“What’s thrown everybody into [disagreement] is the debt ceiling,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) said. “Throwing that in there at the last minute, you can’t do.”
Another idea being floated by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is to separate the main components of the funding package into separate bills and hold votes on each portion. That would mean individual votes on the clean stopgap spending bill, the debt limit suspension, disaster relief, and farmers’ assistance.
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Burlison and Norman both said they’d support that move, although it’s not clear if it’s been considered by House GOP leadership.
Republicans will continue their negotiations on Friday, and House Democrats are also scheduled to hold a caucus meeting in the morning — their third such gathering in the last 24 hours. Democrats have said they’d vote against any spending package other than the original continuing resolution finalized earlier this week.
The absence of an agreement makes it all the more likely the government will shut down as a spending agreement must be passed by both chambers of Congress and signed by the president in order to avoid one.