House Votes to Begin Debate on Bill To Keep Government Open But Unlikely to Pass It

The House on Friday voted to begin debate on a short-term spending bill to keep the government open, but the measure is expected to fail on a final passage vote scheduled for later in the day.

If Republicans cannot pass the bill, which would fund the government through Oct. 31, it will strongly increase the odds of a government shutdown at 12:01 a.m. Sunday. 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., cannot afford more than a handful of defections from his party given universal Democratic opposition to the measure. 

Roughly a dozen ultraconservatives have said for weeks that they would not support any catchall stopgap funding bill, which if they follow through is more than enough “no” votes to sink the bill.

But those Republicans did at least allow the bill to come up for debate, as the House passed a procedural rule in a 218-210 vote.

GOP Reps. Eli Crane of Arizona, Matt Rosendale of Montana and Andy Ogles and Tim Burchett, both of Tennessee, all left the procedural vote saying they would vote against the bill on final passage.

Ogles said they supported the procedural rule "to give everybody the opportunity to vote."

The GOP’s stopgap funding bill would cut spending over the next month for most domestic agencies by 30%. Only the Defense, Veterans and Homeland Security Departments would have been exempt from the cuts.

The bill also included a bevy of GOP-favored border security policies, like requiring President Joe Biden and his administration to restart construction of the southern border wall and restrict the number of migrants who can legally claim asylum.

House Republicans have sought to make the government funding fight about the border. And although they've long lacked the votes to pass their plan to tie the two issues, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has been trying to point the blame at Biden and congressional Democrats.

"Every member will have to go on record of where they stand," McCarthy said ahead of the procedural vote on the House bill. "Are they willing to secure the border or do they side with President Biden on an open border and vote against a measure to keep government open?”

The ultraconservative Republicans who oppose any catchall stopgap funding bill say they instead want to focus on passing the 12 full-year spending bills individually and negotiating with the Senate on those measures. They argue that is the best way to extract steep spending cuts and implement policy controls for executive agencies.

The Senate has its own stopgap funding bill and, unlike the House version, it is bipartisan. But with conservatives in the Senate objecting to speeding through procedural hurdles, the bill is not expected to pass until Monday, a day after the government will have shut down.

McCarthy has declined to consider the Senate bill because it doesn't include border security policy. Senators are working on a potential amendment to that effect but it's unclear if it will pass.

The speaker also noted ahead of the vote that his chamber was making the first move to keep the government open, even though the Senate has already taken two procedural votes on its stopgap funding bill.

"I’m putting a bill on the floor so government won’t shut down," McCarthy said. "The Senate hasn’t done any of that. The president hasn’t engaged in anything.”