Both Republicans and Democrats say they’re desperate to avoid another government shutdown when funding runs out at the end of January. But as lawmakers scramble for a deal, one obstacle keeps resurfacing: President Donald Trump and his personal feuds.
Progress on a partial spending package was already slowed by almost three weeks of Republican infighting. And just as senators began to make headway last week, negotiations ground to a halt again — this time over funding for a climate research institute.
“We’ve lost a lot of time,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said after the meltdown. “We can’t negotiate over the holidays. I mean, we can, but it’s like playacting. This is a setback.”
The latest impasse stems from a dispute between Trump and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat. Trump, angered by Polis’ refusal to release a former election official imprisoned on convictions related to the 2020 election, has pushed to shutter a Boulder-based research facility.
In response, Colorado’s Democratic senators, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, demanded a measure to protect the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s budget. But the White House wouldn’t agree to change its position, Kennedy said, so the Coloradans blocked a swift vote on the bills, and lawmakers left town for the holidays.
“All we’re trying to do is protect the budget that was already there,” Hickenlooper told MS NOW. “So whatever disagreement there is between the state — the governor of Colorado — and the president of the United States, that shouldn’t affect a scientific institution.”
Republicans said they’re ready to hold a vote when the Coloradans lift their hold.
“People say we’re waiting on us, but we’re not,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., said. “We’re waiting on them.”
Lawmakers managed to enact three of the 12 annual government funding bills at the end of the 43-day shutdown in November, but they quickly lost momentum. The five-bill measure that lawmakers were negotiating would have totaled more than $1.2 trillion, roughly three-quarters of the annual budget to keep federal agencies running. But without an agreement on the climate research institute, the entire measure is in jeopardy.
The Colorado dispute is only the latest example of dysfunction. It followed weeks of Republican delays fueled by fights over earmarks and a proposal to continue paying some federal employees during a shutdown — an outcome that now appears increasingly likely in February.
To strike a deal in January, Senate leaders will need to address a long list of demands. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told MS NOW that he and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, were promised votes to strip earmarks from the bills.
Scott has complained that Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., secured too much funding for Georgia — “just helping his campaign for reelection,” Scott said — while Lee has targeted a project backed by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., to renovate a famous elephant-shaped building known as Lucy.
Scott also said he was promised individual votes on all five funding bills, which would be packaged together later in a final vote, so he could oppose the specific measures he doesn’t support.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said he was promised a side deal in which Trump, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., would aim to enact a measure that would allow federal employees to keep receiving paychecks during a shutdown if they’re required to keep working.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., has offered a competing proposal to pay a broader group of employees and keep checks going to contractors.
The big picture also isn’t settled. While sifting through complaints from senators, GOP leaders have only begun to address the House’s concerns. Of the five bills under discussion in the Senate, House Republicans aren’t ready to vote on the three largest, which cover funds for the Departments of Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development. Instead, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said he wants to vote on two of them — one covering the departments of Commerce and Justice and science agency funds, and another covering the Interior Department — plus a bill for the Department of Energy, which senators hadn’t been negotiating on their end. Other bills are even further from a resolution. Senate Republicans released a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security on Friday, drawing pushback from Democrats who said it hadn’t gone through the same bipartisan negotiations as other Senate bills. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the subcommittee that funds DHS, said that with the Trump administration’s unilateral withholding and redirection of money, he’s not sure how he’ll support a measure to fund the department. “I can’t put my name on a bill that condones the way in which they have been stealing money, refusing to spend money and using existing dollars to operate illegally,” Murphy said. Democrats trust that the Republicans they’re negotiating with directly, including Cole and other appropriators, want a deal, said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the top House Democratic appropriator. But DeLauro theorized that top GOP leadership and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought may want to keep the government flying on autopilot with a continuing resolution for the rest of the fiscal year. “I think they are just as happy to continue to deal with one-year continuing resolutions,” DeLauro said. “Because it gives them the greatest leverage and power to manipulate, to steal and to move money around.”
Jack Fitzpatrick covers Congress for MS NOW. He previously reported for Bloomberg Government, Morning Consult and National Journal. He has bachelor's and master's degrees from Arizona State University. Recommended
