There’s a lot to do in very little time to stop shutdown

Lawmakers pressed to pass funding by Friday

WASHINGTON – The federal government will run out of funding Friday, and as of Wednesday afternoon, neither the House nor the Senate had voted on a bill to keep it open.

Though it’s likely they’ll get a shortterm funding bill passed before the government is forced into a partial shutdown, there’s a lot that needs to happen before Friday at midnight.

Timing

Over the weekend, House Republicans introduced a bill that would keep the government funded at the current levels for two more weeks. The House Rules Committee was supposed to meet to discuss the bill Tuesday, and the full House was supposed to vote Wednesday. Pushback from conservatives within the caucus forced everything to be delayed by at least a day.

Though there are enough Republicans in the House to pass legislation along party lines, the narrow GOP margin in the Senate means at least eight Democratic votes will be needed to approve a spending bill.

After it’s made it through both chambers, the bill has to be signed by President Trump, and he may be in Florida on Friday night for a campaign rally. Trump’s aides could use a mechanical device known as the “autopen” to sign the legislation if he isn’t in the White House.

Military funding

GOP leaders in the House have faced resistance from conservatives who want a guarantee that military funding won’t get caught up in the next round of budget talks. Conservatives would like to see defense spending put into its own bill and funded through the end of the fiscal year. They’d like to hold the line on non-defense spending. Democrats support increasing defense and non-defense spending equally.

House Freedom Caucus Chair Mark Meadows, R-N.C., has been negotiating with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Immigration

Many Democrats — and a growing number of moderate Republicans — are calling on Congress to find a solution for 800,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the USA as children and received protection under an Obama-era executive order.

In September, Trump ended that order and gave Congress six months to come up with a solution. Republican leaders said there is no reason to rush what needs to be a bipartisan negotiation on how to protect those covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Democrats said the issue needs to be dealt with before the end of the year, and some threatened to hold government funding hostage over the issue.

Republicans “are willing to enter into good faith negotiations. But it simply does not advance the interests of these DACA recipients to try to force this into a shutdown narrative and to jeopardize our national security and other governmental functions just in order to help these young adults,” Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said Wednesday. “We do want to resolve this, but it’s not going to be before the end of this year.”

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. — who leads the call to pass a bill before the end of the year that would provide a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients — said that what Republican leaders have presented “cannot be considered a good faith effort.”