Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called for a short-term funding extension on Tuesday as Washington stares down a Jan. 19 deadline to fund the government.
The statement puts McConnell, the Senate’s top Republican, in conflict with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who swore off short-term funding measures, known as continuing resolutions, in November.
Johnson may have to walk back those comments if he wants to avoid a shutdown. The speaker announced a deal on top-line spending with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) over the weekend, but the two chambers have a ways to go in negotiating the 12 appropriations bills that make up that figure.
“Obviously, we are going to have to pass a CR as well,” McConnell told reporters as he underscored the importance of passing funding for Ukraine. He deferred to Schumer and Johnson on the length of such a continuing resolution.
The acknowledgment represents a dose of reality for Johnson. Even if appropriators were to hammer out their differences in the coming days, it took more than a month for the Senate to pass the first three of its spending bills in November.
“The simplest things take a week in the Senate, so I think frequently the House doesn’t understand how long it takes to get something through the Senate,” McConnell said at his weekly press conference.
The statement doesn’t make a stopgap any easier for Johnson to swallow.
Such a bill was the catalyst for the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who resigned from Congress at the end of the year. House conservatives, distrustful of his leadership, had accused McCarthy of slow-walking his way to a bloated omnibus.
Johnson, who assumed the speakership in late October, got a pass from conservatives when he agreed to a continuing resolution in his first weeks on the job. But he declared that he was “done” with them shortly thereafter.
Johnson is already in hot water with his right flank over the top-line deal, which maintained the spending levels sought by Democrats even as Johnson won politically significant, if marginal, cuts to the IRS and unspent COVID-19 relief funds. But he risks blame for a shutdown if he does not agree to an extension. The first funding bills expire on Jan. 19, with the remainder lapsing on Feb. 2.
Conservatives have egged on a shutdown fight, hoping to use it as leverage to get border reforms passed, while Johnson has not gone so far in his rhetoric.
Schumer declined to say whether a continuing resolution will be necessary, only telling reporters on Tuesday, “We’re going to work hard to get this done as soon as possible.” He batted away a similar question on the length of a possible CR.
Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, withheld judgment on whether it was a strategic mistake for Johnson to rule out short-term extensions.
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“They’ve got their way of doing things and their own challenges in moving legislation,” he told the Washington Examiner. “But, you know, we’re focused on the Senate.”
He did, however, call the extension an “inevitability” if the government is to stay open, judging that it would need to last until March for Congress to get the appropriations process done.