The latest on government shutdown negotiations:
- The government is still on a path to shut down at 12:01 a.m. Sunday with no deal in sight that both the House and the Senate can accept.
- House Speaker Kevin McCarthy failed to pass a short-term bill, known as a "CR," to keep the government funded through the end of October. Twenty-one conservatives voted against the bill, leaving House Republicans without a path forward.
- President Joe Biden had said he would veto the House Republican bill, which includes deep, across-the-board spending cuts.
- The Senate will try to pass a short-term, bipartisan bill this weekend to keep the government funded through Nov. 17.
McCarthy now wants a clean CR without Ukraine funding
After an almost three-hour Republican conference meeting, McCarthy told reporters he thinks that a clean CR without Ukraine funding could move through the House.
“I’m working through maybe being able to do that,” he said.
McCarthy seemed open to the Senate's bill — as long as the $6 billion in Ukraine aid is removed — but said he still wants a bill to originate in the House. McCarthy speculated that Democrats would oppose such a move.
But it's still not clear what the House's plan is for tomorrow. Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., said there was no agreement on from members on what a short-term bill could look like. “We’re all over the map,” he said.
Womack summed up the situation this way: “I think it’s pretty safe to say that tomorrow at midnight the lights are going to go out.”
House done for the day
The House is done for the day, with no more votes scheduled.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., informed lawmakers that they should be on Capitol Hill tomorrow, but they weren't told what they would be voting on, if anything.
Senate leaves for the day, will return tomorrow at noon
The Senate went into recess this evening after Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., failed to unanimously pass a two-week continuing resolution, or CR, that would keep the government funded into mid-October.
Johnson's "clean" bill, which would keep funding levels at their current levels, does not include any of the provisions like Ukraine aid or money for the border that have drawn opposition from senators on both sides of the aisle.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., objected to Johnson's effort to pass the two-week bill by unanimous consent.
“We can’t be back here in this same situation in two weeks. We need a CR that gives us the actual time to get through our bipartisan spending bills,” said Murray, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
It's unclear what the Senate will do next, as their bipartisan stopgap measure, which funds the government through Nov. 17 but includes Ukraine aid that some Republicans reject, appears destined to fail in the House. The Senate has yet to vote on the bipartisan bill.
Democrats challenge GOP centrists to team up and keep the government open
Top Democrats are calling on centrist House Republicans to team up with them to keep the government open after GOP hardliners tanked their party’s short-term funding bill.
Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said Republicans can sign an existing “discharge petition” that requires just six GOP signatures to force a House vote on a non-controversial continuing resolution, or CR, that would prevent a government shutdown.
That would require breaking with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, which even the most moderate Republicans are reluctant to do. Boyle said if they’re serious about a solution, now is the time to champion the bipartisan Senate CR, which he called a “fair” stopgap measure that both parties favor and is “about as neutral as it gets.” That bill would fund the government through Nov. 17.
Fat Bear Week 'will likely be postponed' if shutdown occurs
A popular social media tournament known as Fat Bear Week could be postponed if the federal government shuts down on Sunday.
The founder of Fat Bear Week, which has taken place at Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska since 2014, today referenced the "many uncertainties" looming over the contest that's scheduled to begin Wednesday.
Mike Fitz said on his site that in addition to the furlough of park rangers, the event celebrating fat bears "will likely be postponed," particularly if the shutdown stretches beyond one or two days.
"While I remain confident that Fat Bear Week will happen this year, I am unsure if it’ll happen as currently scheduled,” Fitz said.
House cancels its October vacation
The House was supposed to get a two-week vacation in October, but that recess has been canceled, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told Republican members, according to two sources in the room.
They'll spend that time working on individual appropriations bills, those sources said. The House has now passed four of the 12 that are needed to fully fund the government, but all include spending cuts that Democrats in the Senate and White House will not accept.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene compares shutdown to Covid closures
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who voted against the House CR, compared a government shutdown to Covid closures in an effort to blame Democrats.
"Democrats are clearly — they’re fine with shutdown," she told reporters outside the GOP conference meeting that's taking place this afternoon. "They shut down the whole country over Covid for far too long and the American people suffered. I promise you, most Americans aren’t too worried about the government shutdown."
"This is because Democrats shut down the country, so there needs to be — people here in Washington need to understand how it feels to be shut down. Because the American people know exactly how that feels."
House Republicans are meeting now
The House GOP conference is meeting in the basement of the Capitol now to try to figure out what their next steps are.
GOP Rep. Nehls, who voted against CR: 'We've waited too damn long'
Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, one of the 21 defectors slammed leadership for waiting to pass funding bills at the deadline.
“We’re in the 9th inning. We’re playing baseball. It’s 7 o’clock at night, the sun’s going down and we don’t have lights. So now let’s panic, and that’s what we’ve done here,” he said. “We’ve waited too damn long.”
Lawmakers with babies and toddlers push Congress to stop the ‘child care cliff’
Millions of families are at risk of losing child care after this weekend when emergency funding allocated to providers during the coronavirus pandemic expires. Congress faces a Saturday deadline to act before the $24 billion Child Care Stabilization Program ends, putting thousands of day care centers, preschools and other child care centers in jeopardy.
At the forefront of the fight to extend the funding are lawmakers who themselves rely on child care to be able to do their jobs: moms and dads of babies and toddlers. With the government also barreling toward a shutdown this week, some of them are sounding the alarm that time to take action is running out.
“It’s frustrating, because when we talk about addressing something like this ... we can’t even do the bare minimum of our job by funding our government,” said Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Colo., who has a 3-year-old son, Davis. “It doesn’t feel hopeful that we’re going to actually, with the current Republican leadership, rise to the occasion to address these urgent needs.”
Seventy thousand child care programs are projected to close as a result of the funding loss, and at least 3.2 million young kids could lose their child care, according to an analysis from the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank.
