It’s a nagging detail that much of the political world would prefer not to think about, for reasons that are entirely understandable. While many lawmakers and their staffs are enjoying some time away from Capitol Hill, lurking in the background is the realization that the deadline for a government shutdown is five weeks away.
The good news is that the pieces are in place for a bipartisan solution. House and Senate leaders from both parties realize that it’s unrealistic to think that Congress will be able to approve nearly a dozen appropriations bills once members get back to work after Labor Day, so a stopgap spending bill will be necessary to prevent the first shutdown since Donald Trump’s 35-day shutdown that began in late 2018.
If Democratic and Republican leaders from both chambers are on board with this solution, what’s the bad news? The answer has everything to do with trying to get a temporary package through the House.
A couple of weeks ago, Rep. Chip Roy told Politico that he’s so opposed to a clean stopgap bill that the Texas Republican described himself as a “violent no.” As NBC News reported, he’s not the only GOP member thinking along these lines.
The ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus is demanding a series of conservative policy changes in exchange for giving its support to any short-term funding measure designed to avert a government shutdown on Sept. 30. The Republican rebels insist that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who floated the idea of a stopgap bill last week, impose conditions that the Democratic-led Senate and President Joe Biden are extremely unlikely to accept.
The Freedom Caucus released a statement yesterday that was, by some measures, a ransom note of sorts. If the House is going to prevent a shutdown with a stopgap spending bill, members of the faction expect the legislation to also include:
- a series of right-wing immigration policies,
- new measures to curtail the “weaponization” of federal law enforcement, and
- prohibitions on “cancerous woke policies” within the Pentagon.
For good measure, the Freedom Caucus’ letter added that its members “will oppose any blank check for Ukraine in any supplemental appropriations bill.”
To the extent that reality will play a role in the conversation, there’s ample room for a bipartisan compromise on immigration policy but House Republicans won’t accept concessions; federal law enforcement has not actually been “weaponized”; and Freedom Caucus members didn’t even bother to identify which “cancerous woke policies” they’re so eager to eliminate.
Nevertheless, as far as the right-wing contingent is concerned, unless their demands are addressed, they’ll refuse to consider supporting a temporary spending bill championed by their own party’s leaders.
All of this, of course, comes on the heels of the House Freedom Caucus trying — and failing — to leverage the recent debt ceiling fight to gain related concessions. When GOP leaders, facing limited choices, largely ignored the contingent’s demands, this enraged the faction and left them looking for another opportunity to exert influence.
That opportunity has apparently arrived.
None of this is good news for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. If the California Republican takes the Freedom Caucus’ demands seriously, it’ll divide his conference and result in a bill that can’t pass the Democratic-Senate. A GOP-imposed shutdown would be effectively inevitable.
But if McCarthy shrugs off the Freedom Caucus — again — and relies on Democratic votes to pass a stopgap measure, the House speaker knows that these right-wing members can make his life even more difficult. It was, after all, just a couple of months ago when the Freedom Caucus embarrassed McCarthy and paralyzed the chamber, and there’s every reason to believe these members would return to those tactics.
What’s more, as the House speaker is well aware, there’s also the possibility that the Freedom Caucus could take advantage of motion-to-vacate-the-chair rules and launch an effort to take McCarthy’s gavel away altogether.
Watch this space.
