Sept. 29 (UPI) — Congress edged closer to a midnight Sunday deadline when the federal government is due to shut down as a small bloc of Republican hardliners dug in to oppose an emergency funding bill in the Senate.
Meanwhile, a vote on the bipartisan Senate stopgap was delayed Thursday while the House struggled to pass its own short-term resolution that would keep the government running for another 45 days and give House Republicans more time to negotiate a final spending deal in the coming weeks.
The stopgap Senate proposal would fund the government until Nov. 17 and include more than $12 billion in funding for Ukraine, however, the continued money flow to Kyiv has met with increased resistance on Capitol Hill recently as Republican opposition to the war was growing louder.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., also lacked his party’s full support on a separate House funding bill due to a shortage of spending cuts and changes to immigration policy that were being demanded by ultraconservatives in the House Freedom Caucus.
The opposition wing, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., has frustrated and undercut McCarthy for weeks as the GOP held only a four-seat majority in the House, giving the hardline coalition increased leverage on critical votes.
If lawmakers fail to pass the spending measure before Sunday’s deadline, federal workers, including Border Patrol agents, could go weeks without pay.
Senate Republicans were working closely with House conservatives to piece together a competing funding bill aimed at giving McCarthy more leverage to negotiate with the defiant bloc of far-right conservatives.
McCarthy has discretion to put either the House or Senate stopgap up for a full vote, presumably before midnight Sunday, when funding for the government is due to expire.
However, it was unclear whether he will have the votes to pass the House stopgap measure, which would set discretionary spending below the $1.59 trillion that McCarthy and President Joe Biden agreed to in a debt limit deal earlier this year.
The House version also includes funding to strengthen immigration security and to build a border wall with Mexico.
Meanwhile, the Senate was expected to take a series of votes over the weekend in an effort to get its funding bill to the House for a final vote by Sunday, but nothing was a sure bet as some conservative senators vowed to oppose the measure due to allocations for Ukraine.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he would oppose the stopgap funding so long as funding for Ukraine remained in the bill.
“To avoid a government shutdown, I will consent to an expedited vote on a clean CR without Ukraine aid on it. If leadership insists on funding another country’s government at the expense of our own government, all blame rests with their intransigence,” he said in a statement posted to X.
Lawmakers acknowledged that time was running out and that a shutdown would be likely unless McCarthy could reach an unlikely compromise with the rancorous conservative bloc.
“It’s hard to see that we would get everything done by Saturday night,” said Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md.
House Republicans also expressed growing uncertainty as the funding deadline approached.
“Unless something dramatic happens today or tomorrow, there will likely be a couple-of-day or longer shutdown — very, very unfortunately, because it’s our responsibility to exercise and exhaust all options,” said Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa.
Senators were advised to remain in Washington over the weekend to ensure they are “available” for the vote.
“Right now we’re told if Republicans insist on delay we’ll be voting through Sunday,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren D-Mass.
