Senate Takes Step to Avert Partial Government Shutdown Next Week

With the House nearly paralyzed again by hardline conservatives, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer took the first meaningful step on Thursday for Congress to avert a partial government shutdown next week.

“It has become crystal clear that it will take more than a week to finish the appropriations process,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a floor speech. “So today I am taking the first procedural step for the Senate to pass a temporary extension of government funding so the government does not shut down on January the 19th.”

Schumer filed cloture on a shell bill the chamber can act on next week. He said members should be prepared to take the first procedural vote on it when they return Tuesday after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. 

“I am taking this step because even a temporary extension of government funding takes about a week to pass through the Senate, so we want to act with enough time before the Jan. 19 deadline,” Schumer said, urging Senate Republicans to work with Democrats “to keep this process moving quickly on the floor.”

While he didn’t specify how long the chamber would move to keep the government funded, Schumer highlighted avoiding a shutdown and keeping the government fully funded through the remainder of the fiscal year as Congress’ “most immediate need” and said he is discussing “this very issue” with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

“The vast majority of us are all on the same page that a government shutdown would be a recipe for chaos,” Schumer said.

Congress last year passed a so-called “laddered” stopgap that funded the government in two tranches, with one expiring Jan. 19 and the other Feb. 2.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had said the House wouldn’t take up any more short-term continuing resolutions to keep the government funded, and members of the House Freedom Caucus are calling for lawmakers to shut down the government unless Democrats agree to shut down the southern border as the Senate struggles to reach a bipartisan deal on border security and immigration that might not go far enough for the House to accept.

Conservative hardliners in the House fired a warning shot Wednesday, tanking a procedural vote for an unrelated bill. House Republicans have an extremely narrow majority with vacancies for retired Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California and expelled Rep. George Santos of New York. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., is also working remotely this month for health reasons, and Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, is set to retire in 10 days to become president of Youngstown State University.

Congressional leaders announced an agreement on top-line spending numbers Sunday, but appropriators have said committee chairs Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Kay Granger, R-Texas, are still negotiating spending allocations for subcommittees.

Schumer said the chairs and their counterparts in the other party “are all committed to working as quickly as possible" to pass all 12 appropriations bills.”