Republicans say they are close to finalizing a package of full-year funding measures for select federal agencies — a critical piece of bipartisan negotiations over the terms for ending the prolonged government shutdown.
“The mini-package should be nearing completion, and that will be the vehicle” for the stopgap spending bill to reopen the government, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday after a closed-door GOP lunch.
Thune met Tuesday night with Democratic negotiators on the shutdown, including Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with Democrats. Bipartisan negotiators want the Senate to stay in session through the weekend to finish a deal, according to two people granted anonymity to disclose private dynamics.
While Thune didn’t rule out staying past the Senate’s normal Thursday afternoon exit time, he said he’d need to first see how much progress was being made.
There is growing consensus that a key to unlocking the ability to pass a continuing resolution to end the shutdown hinges on landing a deal to move forward on three appropriations bills packaged together in a “minibus”: Agriculture-FDA, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs and Legislative Branch.
Republicans want to move these bills as a sign of good faith that they are serious about pursuing the regular-order appropriations process once the shutdown is over, and GOP senators are working with some centrist Democrats to quickly reach an agreement.
But obstacles remain on both sides of the aisle in terms of getting the votes to overcome procedural hurdles.
Senators will need consent from every lawmaker to speed up consideration of the funding package, and Republicans will need help from Democrats to even bring it to the floor; progressives are privately skeptical they would agree to that, preferring at this point to stand firm in extracting more concessions from Republicans before shoring up the votes to end the shutdown. Democratic leadership also hasn’t yet signed off on the package, which could still take several days to finalize.
The Senate Democratic Caucus will meet again for a closed-door lunch Thursday to discuss its larger shutdown strategy, including how hard to press Republicans for an agreement on extending the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Another piece for the House and Senate Republicans to iron out: a new stopgap expiration date. GOP senators discussed this during their Wednesday lunch but didn’t come to any conclusions. Privately, however, some Senate GOP appropriators are coming around to a push from others in their conference to settle on a January end date as opposed to Dec. 19, according to two Republican senators granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) noted the House isn’t likely to pass a December stopgap, anyway, making a January end date the more likely option.
House GOP and Democratic leadership circles think if Republicans can agree on a CR date by this Friday, the House could vote on the package to reopen the government next week, according to four people with direct knowledge of the matter. Mullin said Republicans think they can nail down this question in the “next 24 hours.”
But many lawmakers, especially in House Democratic leadership, believe the final government reopening won’t happen until the week of Nov 17 — unless something rapidly changes in the Senate in the coming hours.
