At end of tense day, shutdown likely off
House sends funding extension to Senate amid battles and threats on Capitol Hill
WASHINGTON — The House did something remarkable on Tuesday: its job — and ahead of time.
The House easily cleared a temporary extension of government funding days ahead of a Friday night deadline, likely teeing up easy Senate passage that will push off a potential government shutdown until early next year.
It was not a moment too soon. Tensions flared around the Capitol complex — including an alleged shoving incident between lawmakers in a basement hallway and threats of a fight in a hearing room — showing how much lawmakers seem desperately ready for a break from each other.
“This will allow everybody to go home for a couple days for Thanksgiving, everybody cool off,” said new House Speaker Mike Johnson. “Members have been here . . . for 10 weeks. This place is a pressure cooker.”
But much else remained in limbo, including war funding for Israel and Ukraine, as well as money and policy changes to address the burgeoning migrant influx across the country, with no clear deadline to force Congress to act on the horizon.
Lawmakers who support a supplemental funding bill for those matters expressed optimism that averting a shutdown will create the necessary space for Democrats and Republicans to negotiate a path forward. A significant number of House Republicans oppose additional funding for Ukraine and more broadly, the GOP is pushing for hard-line immigration policies that Democrats say are unacceptable.
“We’re certainly going to have the time now to do that, assuming Speaker Johnson’s proposal passes the House,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told reporters before the House funding vote.
The pressure in Washington to de
‘Members have been here . . . for 10 weeks. This place is a pressure cooker.’ HOUSE SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON
liver aid to Israel became more acute Tuesday, with a rally of thousands of people on the National Mall and family members of hostages taken by Hamas meeting with lawmakers in the Capitol.
“You are making an impact on America,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, told the families as they gathered with a bipartisan group of lawmakers. “Never doubt that your being here is the most powerful message we could possibly see.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren agreed that removing the threat of a shutdown until early next year — and with it the threat of deep spending cuts many Republicans want as part of a longer-term funding bill — could smooth the way for a deal on money for Ukraine, Israel, and humanitarian assistance for Gaza.
“The overwhelming majority of people in the Senate — both Democrats and Republicans — know that we urgently need a supplemental spending bill,” the Massachusetts Democrat said. “People have different views on which part is most important, but there’s a lot of consensus that the whole package needs to move forward and it needs to move forward now.”
But exactly how to do that remained unclear. House Republicans this month passed a standalone bill providing $14.5 billion for Israel that would be offset by cuts to the IRS that they knew Senate Democrats would reject. McConnell and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer of New York want to combine Israel and Ukraine aid, but some Senate Republicans want to keep them separate.
The current inaction sends the wrong signals around the world at the wrong time, said Representative Seth Moulton. He blamed House Republican leaders for stalling a clear bipartisan consensus to aid Ukraine and Israel.
“We have to stand by our allies and they’re playing politics with war,” the Salem Democrat said. “The message that our adversaries are getting is that we’re waffling.”
Only two Democrats opposed the bill alongside 93 Republicans. One was Newton Representative Jake Auchincloss, who cited the exclusion of the supplemental funding as his reason.
“Despite credible efforts that reflect the bipartisan majorities in both chambers in favor of aid, there is no clear and concrete plan from Republicans to demonstrate global leadership to friends and foes alike,” Auchincloss said in a statement. “I cannot support a short-term spending measure, cobbled together as the GOP careens from crisis to crisis, that fails to defend democracy.”
Behind the scenes, tense energy seemed to abound on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
It started with a bizarre scene witnessed by an NPR reporter in which California Representative Kevin McCarthy allegedly “shoved” a fellow House Republican who voted to oust him from the speakership. That congressman, Tennessee Representative Tim Burchett, pursued McCarthy after the alleged incident and called him “pathetic,” going on a subsequent media blitz describing the shove as a “clean shot to the kidneys” that still hurt later in the day. McCarthy denied the incident and insisted any physical attack he committed would have had more noticeable effects.
Not long after that, in an unrelated incident of machismo run amok, Oklahoma Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin confronted Teamsters president Sean O’Brien in an exchange of bravado during a Senate hearing. Mullin, a former mixed martial arts fighter, stood up as if he were going to physically fight the union boss, who had previously publicly challenged him. A potential confrontation was stopped by independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who told Mullin to sit down and reminded him he was a senator.
Back across the Capitol complex, in yet another episode, Kentucky Republican Representative James Comer called Democratic Florida Representative Jared Moskowitz a “Smurf ” in apparent derision of his height as the two clashed over Comer’s financial records and the allegations he has made about President Biden.
Many on Capitol Hill laughed off the displays of posturing as sideshows, particularly during a week that kicked off in the House with an unsuccessful vote to impeach the Homeland Security secretary. But some pointed to them as examples of why the government funding extension was so necessary ahead of the Thanksgiving break. The indecorous outbursts were in keeping with a stretch since September that pitted House members against each other in the ousting of McCarthy as speaker, a chaotic effort to find a replacement, and multiple censure resolutions brought across party lines.
“There’s a lot going on, not only here at home but around the world,” said the Republican whip, Senator John Thune of South Dakota. “Emotions are running high.”
Some lawmakers, though, weren’t willing to brush off the behavior as cabin fever.
“Tell that to the person who works 80 hours a week, every single week, earning $16 an hour, and they have to hold it together while they’re dealing with people on airplanes that are threatening to punch them,” scoffed Minnesota Senator Tina Smith, a Democrat who was present for Mullin’s outburst. “We should be able to have policy disagreements without literally challenging somebody to a physical fight in a committee.”