Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s “clean” bill that stopped a partial government shutdown bought Congress more time to strike a deal on full-year funding, but the intense battle over federal spending hasn’t cooled down and the rebellion within the House Republican Conference is heating up.
Mr. McCarthy, California Republican, faces an insurrection that could oust him from the top job in the House this week. Meanwhile, House Republicans are under pressure to muscle through the full-year appropriations bills and confront the Democratic-run Senate and President Biden over federal debt and spending.
Mr. Biden’s signature on the bill in the waning hours of Saturday capped a week of drama on Capitol Hill. It gave lawmakers until Nov. 17 to finish work on spending legislation for fiscal 2024, which began Sunday.
The president cast the surprising turn of events in the House as a Democratic victory over “MAGA Republicans.”
“The last few days and weeks, extreme MAGA Republicans tried to walk away from that deal,” he said. “Voting for deep, drastic spending cuts … that would have been devastating for millions of Americans. They failed again. They failed again, and we stopped them. But I’m under no illusions that they’ll be back again,” Mr. Biden said Sunday.
Congress could easily bring the federal government to the brink of a partial shutdown again in six weeks.
Mr. McCarthy’s gambit — turning to Democrats to pass the eleventh-hour reprieve from a partial shutdown — has for now spared the 2 million federal employees and 1.3 million active-duty service members from furloughs, stopped further delays at airports and prevented an interruption in Head Start service for roughly 10,000 children.
He offered the “clean” bill without spending cuts or policy changes for a vote on Saturday. On Friday, 21 hard-line conservatives rejected a bill that catered to Republicans with a 30% cut to domestic spending and border security measures.
Mr. McCarthy said the rebels in his conference forced him to enlist Democrats for votes.
“If you have members in your conference that won’t let you vote for appropriations … and won’t vote for a stopgap measure, the only answer is to shut down and not pay our troops. I don’t want to be a part of that team. I want to be a part of the conservative group that wants to get things done,” Mr. McCarthy said.
The stopgap bill includes $16 billion in disaster aid, which meets Mr. Biden’s emergency funding request. It also continues fiscal 2023 government spending at the same level.
Mr. McCarthy’s opponents in the Republican conference said the 2023 spending levels were part of the budget written by Mr. Biden and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat.
SEE ALSO: Ukraine takes U.S. funding block in stride after Hill vote
The temporary funding bill passed the House in a 335-91 vote. Republicans cast all but one of the opposing votes. Rep. Mike Quigley, Illinois Democrat, voted against it.
The Senate passed the bill in an 88-9 vote, with all the opposition from Republicans. The senators who voted no were Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Mike Braun of Indiana, Ted Cruz of Texas, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Mike Lee of Utah, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Eric Schmitt of Missouri and J.D. Vance of Ohio.
The stopgap bill did not include extra money for Ukraine that Mr. Biden and Democrats on Capitol Hill wanted. Faced with funding either the U.S. government or Ukraine, Democrats overwhelmingly picked the U.S. and voted for the “clean” spending bill.
House Democrats now want a vote on a Ukraine aid package.
“When the House returns, we expect Speaker McCarthy to advance a bill to the House Floor for an up-or-down vote that supports Ukraine, consistent with his commitment to making sure that Vladimir Putin, Russia and authoritarianism are defeated,” House Democratic leaders said in a joint statement Saturday.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican leading a rebellion to oust Mr. McCarthy, accused the speaker of cutting a secret deal with Democrats.
Mr. McCarthy said Sunday that he supports helping Ukraine fight the Russian invaders but wants to secure the U.S. border first.
“I’m going to make sure that the weapons are provided for Ukraine, but they’re not going to get some big package if the border is not secure,” Mr. McCarthy said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Ukraine aid, which faces stiff opposition from House Republicans, is only a piece of the federal spending puzzle.
Congress usually passes stopgap bill after stopgap bill to keep the government open until lawmakers agree on a colossal spending package known as an omnibus that includes all 12 annual spending bills.
Mr. McCarthy has pledged to break that trend.
The House has passed four of the 12 spending bills. Mr. McCarthy canceled the October recess to force lawmakers to buckle down and finish the remaining bills. He also produced a schedule for advancing the bills after members of the House Freedom Caucus demanded a plan.
The Senate has not passed a single spending bill, but Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, has primed three spending bills to head to the floor.
Mr. McCarthy said it is up to the Senate whether the government will be on the brink of a shutdown again in November.
“It all comes down to the Senate,” Mr. McCarthy said on “Face the Nation.” “The Senate hasn’t done one thing.”
The two chambers have opposing views on spending caps in the debt ceiling deal brokered by the speaker and the White House. The Republican-run House wants deep spending cuts, but the Senate wants to spend up to the caps. That creates a fierce spending fight to reconcile the House and Senate bills.
Mr. McCarthy also must contend with Mr. Gaetz, who has churned up dissent and vowed to file a motion to remove the speaker. Congress calls it a motion to vacate the chair.
Mr. Gaetz’s motion was triggered when the speaker turned to Democrats to prevent a partial government shutdown. Mr. Gaetz led a contingent of hard-line conservatives who vowed never to vote for stopgap legislation. They wanted to pass the full-year bills individually while the government was shuttered.
Mr. McCarthy said he would survive the effort to oust him.
• Mallory Wilson contributed to this report.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the House vote Saturday on a 45-day stopgap spending bill. The bill passed on a 355-91 vote, with 90 Republicans and one Democrat opposing the bill.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
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