Today in politics |
Republicans scramble to try to avert government shutdown as deadline nears
Story highlights
- House Speaker Paul Ryan can't rely on Democrats to vote to fund the government
- Conservative factions of the Republican Party also haven't decided how they'll vote
(CNN)House
Republican leaders are moving toward a vote Thursday to avoid a
shutdown, but as a new day dawns in Washington, it's still unclear if
GOP leaders have enough support to keep the government open.
House
Speaker Paul Ryan and his lieutenants were up against the clock and
their own ranks as they scrambled to lock down votes. If Congress
doesn't send a bill to the President approving more money by midnight on
Friday, most federal agencies will be forced to stop operations. GOP
leaders can't count on Democrats who have said they will not support a
short-term spending bill that funds the government into mid-February if
it does not include a fix for DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals program that expires in March. That left Ryan looking to pass
the spending bill with just Republican votes.
But conservatives are still a major question mark.
House
Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican, is
one of a small group of conservatives opposed to the short-term funding
bill and told reporters Wednesday he didn't believe GOP leaders had the
votes to pass it because of the internal divisions. He didn't rule out
supporting it, saying he spoke to President Donald Trump and met with
the chief deputy whip, Rep. Patrick McHenry, a fellow GOP North
Carolinian.
Asked
about Meadows' saying he's a no and others in the Freedom caucus
planning to oppose the bill, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of
California tweaked his GOP colleagues, saying "they want a shutdown? I
don't think they'd want to shut down."
'What other choice do have this week'
While
reluctant to pass yet another short-term continuing resolution or "CR"
-- the fourth in just months -- many rank-and-file members seemed mostly
resigned Wednesday to the fact that it was the only option, even if
they were not happy about it.
"What
other choice do have this week," asked New Jersey Republican Rep. Tom
MacArthur. "I'm certainly not going to vote to shut the government down.
That's irresponsible."
During a
closed-door meeting Wednesday morning, GOP leaders made the pitch that
the stopgap bill was the only path to keeping talks going on a broader
budget deal and a separate effort to come up with a bipartisan
compromise on DACA. Without a unified Republican conference heading into
that vote, leaders would be forced to give concessions to Democrats in
order to get their support and avoid any shutdown.
"There
seemed to be a consensus with the cards that we have that this is the
best way to play it," North Carolina GOP Rep. Mark Walker said after the
meeting. He called the latest short term bill "a proverbial crap sandwich," but said at this juncture he supported it.
As
the afternoon wore on and leaders surveyed GOP lawmakers, one member of
the Republican Whip team told CNN that things were going in the right
direction.
Republicans
added sweeteners to the bill, hoping to make it tough for Democrats to
oppose it. They tacked on a six-year extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program,
a popular program that some states say is close to running out of
money. They also delayed some taxes from the Affordable Care Act -- one
on medical devices and another on high-cost, so-called "Cadillac"
insurance plans, items they believe it would be tough for those
Democrats in swing districts to vote against.
Ryan also emphasized that the standoff over immigration is preventing a longer-term funding deal for the Pentagon.
"Funding
for modernizing the Army has been cut in half in just the past eight
years. Navy sailors are putting in 100-hour work weeks, and less than
half of their aircraft are capable of flying. The number of fatal
accidents or those resulting in the loss of aircraft for the Marines has
doubled over the last decade," Ryan said, adding, "it's baffling to me
that Democrats would be willing to block funding for a military over
unrelated issues."
House Democratic
leaders are urging their members to oppose the measure because it fails
to address DACA, according to Democratic sources.
House Republicans aren't unified
But Ryan still had work to do with the conservative House Freedom Caucus.
Ohio
GOP Rep. Warren Davidson, a member of the Freedom Caucus, told
reporters he's undecided on how he'll vote. But he blasted Democrats for
their position, saying, "they're picking 800,000 people who brought
them here illegally versus our troops and that is very frustrating so we
have wanted to have this money to our troops since October 1, meanwhile
our troops aren't getting this money."
GOP
leaders have consistently argued House Democrats would be responsible
for a shutdown if the measure fails on the House floor, and Meadows
conceded that it would be easier to blame Democrats for a shutdown if
the House clears the bill but it fails in the Senate (Democrats are
quick to point out that Republicans control both chambers of Congress
and the Executive Branch).
Pressed
what he and other conservatives are asking leaders for, Meadows said
they are pressing for more details on the big picture plan going
forward. "At what point are we going to have a plan on where we land or
are we just going to hope that February 16 is better than January 19
because it's in a different month?"
In the Senate
In
the Senate, it was still unclear exactly how Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell would manage to get the votes. McConnell, unlike, Ryan needs
Democrats. And many Democrats were keeping their powder dry as to how
they would vote, waiting on the House to lay their cards on the table
and prove they had the GOP votes on their own to pass the continuing
resolution.
Senate
Democrats are also caught in a tough spot. A handful are running for
re-election in states where Trump handily won in 2016. Red state
Democrats don't want to run the risk of being labeled as responsible for
a shutdown.
"I want to keep the
government open. I'm just going to work and work and work to keep the
government open," West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin said.
But
others are under pressure from their liberal base who mobilized when
lawmakers voted for a short-term spending bill last time around.
Sen.
Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, said he had doubts about voting
for another short-term CR while Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat,
remained vague about what his plans were.
"I
would hope we'd have something everybody has agreed to," Leahy said. "I
would hope the President and Republican leaders wouldn't want to
humiliate themselves by not going forward with what we agreed to."
Others
are just tired of the whole exercise: Congress using short-term
spending bills to kick the can down the road only to return to do it
again a month later.
"I'm just tired of voting for CRs," said Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine.
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