New bipartisan stopgap spending bill offered with shutdown a week away

A bipartisan caucus has introduced a new stopgap spending measure to keep the government open that includes border security provisions, Ukraine funding and disaster money. 

The measure comes as lawmakers are scrambling to advance spending legislation ahead of the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. Lawmakers from the Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan caucus with about 60 members in the House, introduced the Bipartisan Keep America Open Act on Friday. 

Problem Solvers member Rep. Don Bacon, Nebraska Republican, introduced the legislation with fellow GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Democratic Reps. Ed Case of Hawaii and Jared Golden of Maine. 

The other two GOP-only stopgap bills have been all but guaranteed to die in the upper chamber because of demands from the House Freedom Caucus baked into the bills, like steep spending cuts and the House’s marquee border bill. 

But Mr. Bacon believed that his legislation had a chance. The caucus floated the stopgap bill to the Senate Saturday morning, he said. 

“We think it creates that discussion space that you can create a bipartisan bill,” he said. “We shouldn’t be focused on trying to get 218 Republicans when you got five to 10 that are refusing to work with the rest of the team. They’re doing 100% or zero.”

The legislation stands in stark contrast from the other stopgap measures that have been proposed by only conservatives in the House, and could garner support from Democrats in the lower chamber who have opposed the GOP-only measures. 

For one, the proposal would fund the government at the current fiscal year’s levels, which is a strong departure from other versions that call for overall funding to be at $1.471 trillion.  

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy pitched a stopgap measure earlier in the week that would set spending at that level for its 30-day duration. 

Another is the timeline for the deal — the Problem Solvers’ version would last until Jan. 11, 2024, while the other bills have stuck with a more temporary 30-day window. 

The measure would also include President Biden’s emergency supplemental request for Ukraine and disaster funding, the former of which has been a nonstarter for some conservative lawmakers. 

Mr. Bacon said that Ukraine funding was in the country’s national security interests, and did not buy “all the bologna” from conservatives that are against spending more in the war-beleaguered country. 

While the latest proposal does not include the House’s Secure the Border Act, which appears in the other two stopgap bills, it does have include a provision that would only allow migrants into the country if they are considered refugees, Mr. Bacon said. 

Mr. Bacon added that there was some “expanding willingness” from Democrats to address issues at the U.S./Mexico border because the situation has grown into a national problem. 

The latest stopgap bill also extends authorizations that are set to expire by the end of the fiscal year, including authorizations for the FAA and Community Health Center. 

But the bipartisan proposal and GOP-only proposals all run into the same roadblock formed by seven conservative lawmakers that have vowed to never vote for a stopgap measure. 

“I think Speaker McCarthy has done his best to try to get 218, get a deal, and you just got people moving goalposts,” Mr. Bacon said. “So we have to work with the Senate anyway, at some point. I would submit to you that we should just work in a bipartisan manner to begin with.”