How McCarthy led his divided conference in avoiding a government shutdown

After watching a conservative continuing resolution go down to hard-line conservative opposition on Friday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) walked into a meeting with his conference trying to game out the next steps.

He had just put up a conservative stopgap measure that cut spending and provided for intensive border security measures, but it wasn’t good enough for 21 members of his conference.

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So, according to a source with knowledge of the conversations, in a conference meeting on Friday, he gave his members four options: get a Republican continuing resolution over the finish line with 218 votes — this was met with heavy skepticism it could pass; try and jam the Senate with a clean continuing resolution with disaster relief and dare the Democrats to vote against it; pass whatever continuing resolution the Senate passes; shut the government down.

Despite the skepticism, the conference decided on option one, but instead of a 31-day continuing resolution, they would make it a 14-day continuing resolution. But the support for this plan still wasn’t there as there were still seven or eight holdouts, the source said.

But, even if a conservative continuing resolution were to pass, it wouldn’t help avoid a government shutdown as it would never pass the Democrat-controlled Senate or be signed into law by President Joe Biden. So, a group of members met in McCarthy’s office after the conference meeting to discuss other plans. Walking out of that meeting, one senior GOP member told the Washington Examiner that a clean continuing resolution being brought to the floor on Saturday was the “most likely option.”

Then, at 11:52 p.m. on Friday, the clean continuing resolution that would eventually become law was filed, showing McCarthy had this in the back of his head as a plan if his conference were to support it.

But, as he walked into the Capitol on Saturday, his focus was on mitigating the effects of a government shutdown because, as of Friday night, the support for a continuing resolution wasn’t there.

At the beginning of a Republican Conference meeting Saturday morning, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) shared with the conference that they didn’t have the votes to pass a continuing resolution of any kind due to too much opposition, according to a source in the room. They then presented a plan to mitigate the effects of a shutdown by passing legislation to ensure those in the military received pay during a shutdown and to extend the authorization of the National Flood Insurance Program and the Federal Aviation Agency.

When this plan was presented, members kept bringing up other things they wanted funded during a shutdown, and the plan started to fall out of favor, the source with knowledge said.

Then, Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) told the conference about his experience through three shutdowns and how this plan wouldn’t work. He explained how there are always programs important to their constituents that will go without funding, and it’s impossible to ensure all these different programs stay funded during a shutdown.

So, as that plan started to fail, a group of members — led by the New York Republicans and the Main Street Caucus — started to express their interest in doing a clean, continuing resolution to keep the government funded.

It was explained how voting on a clean continuing resolution that included disaster relief was a win-win for House Republicans because either it passed and jammed the Senate or it failed, and they blamed Democrats for voting against funding the government because it didn’t include Ukraine.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), who was the lead liaison between the Senate and the House, attended the conference meeting, spoke up, and said that at 1 p.m., the Senate was voting on cloture for their continuing resolution, and once that finishes, it’s likely not going to change.

With members still at the microphone, McCarthy paused and felt the room. “I think I hear where members are going,” he said, addressing the conference. “Do you guys want to jam the Senate?”

This was met with a resounding yes from those in the room.

He then turned to an aide of his and asked how quickly they could get it on the floor. “15 minutes,” the aide responded.

McCarthy came out of the meeting and made the announcement.

“The House is going to act so government will not shut down,” McCarthy told reporters. “We will put a clean funding stopgap on the floor to keep government open for 45 days for the House and Senate to get their work done.”

Then, the scramble began. House Republicans quickly went to the floor to start debate on the bill, and House Democratic leadership urged their members to get to the Capitol as soon as possible.

Democrats then attempted a number of delay tactics, including making a motion to adjourn until Monday and then voting on the motion by using paper cards as opposed to the electronic voting machine — in the end, none of them would vote for the motion — and having the House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) do a “magic minute” where he would talk on the floor while his caucus read the bill.

But, when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) came out and announced that his members would not vote for cloture on the Senate’s continuing resolution and would instead wait for the House’s version to come over, it was evident the House’s bill was the only one that could avoid a government shutdown.

The bill passed the House 335-91, with only one Democrat voting against the bill, along with 90 Republicans. As it passed, bipartisan applause rang out within the House Chamber. The continuing resolution would fund the government for 45 days at fiscal year 2023 levels, would provide $16 billion for disaster relief, and would extend the authorization of the FAA.

While 90 Republicans did vote against the bill, it was a political victory for McCarthy, who received a majority of his conference’s support and led the charge in avoiding a government shutdown.

For weeks, McCarthy had signaled he wouldn’t put a clean continuing resolution on the floor, then he started opening up to it, but once that conservative continuing resolution failed on the floor the day prior, there was only one option to avoid a shutdown.

He quoted Winston Churchill as saying, “You can always count on Americans to do what’s right after they’ve exhausted every other option,” as his reason for this shift.

“He was willing to run a political risk on his side to achieve, I think, again, the right results for the country, but also a political victory,” Cole said. “So, I think he comes out of this a lot stronger than he went into it.”

But the risk is still real.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), McCarthy’s main antagonist, has threatened that if McCarthy were to put a clean continuing resolution on the floor, he would file a motion to vacate in an attempt to oust him as speaker.

And on Sunday, he said he intends to follow through with those plans, telling CNN’s Jake Tapper that he does “intend to file a motion to vacate against” McCarthy this week.

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While Gaetz claims to have the “requisite number of House Republicans” in order to be successful on a motion to vacate, McCarthy and his allies are confident they have enough support to shoot down any motion to vacate that Gaetz might bring.

“If somebody wants to make a motion against me, bring it,” McCarthy said. “There has to be an adult in the room.”