After angry rejection from both parties, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and his team are deciding between two last-ditch government funding deals to avert a partial government shutdown Friday night.
One approach consists of breaking the main stopgap demands — Republican-requested farm funding, Democrat-requested disaster package, and a clean short-term funding bill to keep the government open — into three separate votes.
This approach would allow legislators to vote for individual measures they support and against the bills they oppose, allowing Congress to keep the government open without members compromising on their respective demands.
A second option would be reintroducing the previous slimmer CR that the House roundly rejected Thursday night, with the only change being an axing of the debt ceiling increase provision. But even if most Republicans vote for it, Democrats have said they will not, which likely means the votes required for the bill’s passage will not be reached.
Both plans remove a universally contentious provision to suspend the debt ceiling, which Johnson hopes will be enough to placate both parties and garner enough votes in both chambers.
“We’re looking at the different options to keep the government running and to provide disaster relief and to help our farmers,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters Friday afternoon.
Johnson’s first attempt at a government funding deal, a bloated 1,547-page Continuing Resolution negotiated with Democratic congressional leaders, blew up Wednesday night after President-elect Donald Trump and ally Elon Musk loudly condemned it for including billions of dollars’ worth of Democrat wishlist items.
Besides the necessary $100 billion in disaster aid and billions to extend the farm bill, that CR included a new football stadium in Washington, D.C., $8 billion for the replacement of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, and a future pay raise for members of Congress, among other things.
After hastily meeting with members of Trump’s team, Johnson released a 116-page “skinny CR,” which not only cut most of Democrat’s demands but also included a 2-year debt suspension, per Trump’s request. The measure would have funded the government through March, allocated roughly $100 billion in disaster relief, and extended the farm bill for a year.
That bill decisively failed in a suspended rules vote Thursday night, with 38 nay votes from Republicans who oppose lifting the debt ceiling.
“The debt limit is the only leverage we have against big spenders in both parties to reduce the size, scope, and cost of government and stop mortgaging our children’s future,” U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said Friday morning in a social media post.
