Senate Democrats express worry as House continues with partisan appropriations bills

Senate Democrats say they’re growing concerned that House Republicans won’t be willing to avert a government shutdown as the lower chamber continues to pass partisan spending bills.

The House and Senate have less than a month to pass their 12 respective appropriations bills and deliver them to the conference committee, where legislation is sent to sort out differences. Should lawmakers miss that deadline, the government will run out of money and shut down.

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The two have been inching toward an eventual showdown over federal spending levels, with each chamber writing their versions with different caps.

Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Susan Collins (R-ME), who lead the Senate Appropriations Committee, wrote their bills using spending levels agreed upon as part of President Joe Biden and then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) deal to avert a debt default in May.

As part of his larger effort to keep the right flank of his conference from ousting him as speaker, McCarthy permitted the House Appropriations Committee to write their spending bills with caps set below the agreed-upon numbers. The effort failed, and McCarthy’s early October ouster left the House paralyzed for three weeks as the GOP conference rallied around a leader.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) eventually secured the gavel late last month, and the chamber’s Republican appropriators went back to passing their partisan spending bills without Democratic support.

The House has thus far passed seven of its 12 bills, while the Senate has only passed three. Still, the Senate-led bills passed through committee on a bipartisan basis, and Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee told the Washington Examiner they’re worried that this next iteration of House Republican leadership won’t govern with them.

“I’m concerned about everything in the House of Representatives, not just the budget,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said. “Right now, it doesn’t feel like the House is serious about working with Democrats.”

“It feels like they don’t acknowledge that in the White House and the Senate you need Democratic support to get anything done,” he continued. “I don’t really have a window into what they’re talking about on appropriations, it just doesn’t seem like they’re serious about getting anything done right now.”

Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) said his “concern is high, just given the track record and the chaos that we’ve seen over there,” adding that Democrats took the bipartisan route in the Senate in hopes that it would “kind of drive the process.”

The bipartisan approach to the appropriations process has wide-ranging support in the Senate Republican Conference, including from leadership, though this is not surprising. It is unlikely that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) would encourage Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Democrats, with their 51-49 majority, to write up appropriations bills without GOP input.

Senate Republicans pushed back on the concerns of their Democratic colleagues, with Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) telling reporters that Johnson is trying to keep his conference together “in order to get things through.

“If you get something that doesn’t mesh with what the Senate wants, it’s because he can’t get it through the House in the form that the Senate wants,” Lummis said after meeting with Johnson on Wednesday. “I think we have to be very aware of the fact that he has his finger on the pulse of his caucus, and that he’s going to do his darnedest to get legislation passed the House so we can consider it as soon as possible.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD), meanwhile, said avoiding a government shutdown will “depend on how we approach the remaining bills in the Senate.

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“They’re working on the House bills right now. We got the first minibus out of here. If we do a maxibus next of nine [appropriations bills], I think then we can move directly into conference and discussion,” Rounds explained. “It’s a matter then for the appropriators to determine how long the conference takes, [whether that be] 30 days, 60 days, or 90 days.”

“The one thing we won’t do is jam ourselves by saying we have to do it before we leave for a scheduled recess,” he added. “That’s where we make bad policy.”