In the News

 

Congress is almost halfway through its September sprint to prevent a government shutdown and lawmakers have little to show for it.

 

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) will try again this week to pass his conservative-backed funding patch, known as a continuing resolution, after scrapping a vote last week.

 

"We are going to continue to work on this. The whip is going to do the hard work to build consensus and work on the weekend on that," Johnson said.

 

The Louisiana Republican's proposal would push the funding deadline back six months and includes language to require proof of citizenship for voting.

 

Democrats and the White House — and now a growing number of congressional Republicans — say they prefer an extension that is half as long. Democrats also object to partisan add-ons.

 

"A real proposal for avoiding a shutdown would be the one that both sides write together,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said last week. "I urge Speaker Johnson to set aside this CR proposal and try again. We’ve already lost one week in this three-week work period."

 

But coming up with a new plan that House Republicans and the Democratic-controlled Senate can both get behind before the end of the month will be a challenge.

 

Johnson and his leadership team are facing competing requests from all corners of the Capitol — from demands to keep the election security-related language to pleas for more disaster relief funding — that threaten to delay a bipartisan deal further.

 

Some Republican appropriators have begun to suggest that a funding stopgap into December, rather than March, could do the trick, but the inclusion of the citizenship language, known as the "SAVE Act," would still be enough for the Senate to tank the proposal.

 

And Democratic demands to shore up funding for low-income food programs and the Social Security Administration could scare away fiscal hawks whose votes could be critical for House passage.

 

Even typically bipartisan priorities like veterans’ health care and disaster relief funding have become somewhat toxic as lawmakers attempt to demonstrate party loyalty ahead of the elections.

 

“We’ve got a lot of silly gamesmanship going on,” said House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.), blaming the Senate for not having voted on any fiscal 2025 spending bills when the House passed five.

 

“It’s pretty frustrating, but ... the longer they go, the worse they are. [The CR] is a lot better than a shutdown. We just need to sit down, start getting our work done.”

 

Cole’s Democratic counterpart, Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, last week called for top appropriators to begin “good-faith negotiations” on a bipartisan CR. Asked Friday when those talks could commence, Cole said he will make that decision “when my leadership tells me I make that decision.”

 

Disaster relief in limbo

Among the biggest casualties of the partisan brinkmanship so far are federal disaster relief accounts that are drying up as wildfires explode across the West and as parts of the South work to recover from the latest hurricane landfall.

 

“There are a lot of disaster needs. I don’t know what the plan is for taking care of those,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

 

Indeed, as of last week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency expects its disaster relief fund to stand at a $1.8 billion shortfall before the end of the month, with its major-disasters balance dropping to a $6.8 billion deficit.

 

Some Democrats have said the $10 billion in new funding that Johnson’s continuing resolution includes for FEMA’s disaster fund is not enough. The White House has requested more than twice that amount since last year.

 

And they have expressed frustration that other disaster programs such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s disaster block grant program and the Small Business Administration’s disaster loans program would not receive any new funding under the proposal.

 

By the end of last week, Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz, chair of the Senate Transportation-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee, was circulating a letter demanding a plus-up of HUD's Community Development Block Grants-Disaster Relief program and asking his Democratic and Republican colleagues to sign on.

 

House Republicans from disaster-prone states have so far danced around the disaster funding shortfall, not wanting to ruffle feathers within their party and undermine the fledgling effort to secure a conservative CR with little added funding.

 

Some have suggested that Congress address the issue through a separate supplemental funding package before the end of the year, but the chances of that happening are slim, and some worry it could be too little, too late.

 

In the Senate, where the appropriations process has been dictated by bipartisanship, Republicans from disaster-affected states have been more supportive of the effort to shore up disaster accounts in the CR.

 

"I’ve always voted [for] and prioritized disaster relief," said Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, noting the tsunamis, landslides and earthquakes that his state is prone to. "The way I view it is, but for the grace of God, go my state, right?"

 

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), whose home state was experiencing massive blackouts and flooding last week from Hurricane Francine, said he was aware of FEMA's funding limitations and wanted to see Congress provide the agency more money this month.

 

"I’m hoping, practically, the shortfall they’re having right now will not make a difference because I’m hoping we put up a funding bill that gives FEMA the cash reserves they need," he said. "You never know when a disaster’s going to hit."

 

Cassidy said his hopes were buoyed by his belief that Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, both also from Louisiana, would be sympathetic to the cause, and he added that Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have also seen their share of disasters.

 

Aides for Johnson, Scalise and McConnell did not respond to questions about the leaders’ stances on disaster funding. Schumer has called for more disaster aid.

 

Schatz gave an impassioned floor speech Thursday practically begging his colleagues to consider the needs of disaster-struck states as they negotiate government funding this month and beyond.

 

"We have an opportunity not to do something extraordinary, but to do something absolutely essential," Schatz said. “To do the thing that Congress always does, which is when a community gets flattened, we are there."