Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned on Tuesday that Congress could be on the brink of a government shutdown because House Republicans “are struggling with a bad case of Groundhog Day” by insisting on adding controversial legislation to a short-term funding bill.
“Instead of pursuing bipartisanship, Speaker [Mike] Johnson [R-La.] is yet again — yet again — wasting time caving to the hard right, despite his razor-thin majority. Hasn’t he learned?” Schumer said on the Senate floor, referring to the House Republicans’ stop-gap government funding bill, which includes legislation to require proof of citizenship when people register to vote.
Senate Democrats have warned that adding stricter proof of citizenship requirements for voting is a nonstarter and that Schumer likely wouldn’t even bring the House stopgap measure to the Senate floor for a vote, if it even manages to pass the lower chamber.
“This is what got the Republicans in trouble in the last few times that we had to fund the government,” Schumer said.
“The right wing in their sort of strict, narrow, partisan ideology thinks they can force everybody, even dissident Republicans — let alone Democrats and the president — to go along with them. But of course it doesn’t happen,” the Democratic leader said, referring to past standoffs with House conservatives over government funding bills.
“The House should stop wasting time on a C.R. proposal that cannot become law,” he said. “Instead, Republicans should work with Democrats on a bipartisan package that has input from both sides.”
Schumer said he was “heartened” that Johnson at least agreed to stick with the top-line funding levels that Senate and House Republicans agreed to earlier this year.
But he said that positive development was tempered by what he called the disappointing effort by House Republicans to pass a stop-gap funding bill that would keep federal programs essentially frozen until the end of March.
“It’s not serious for Republicans to say they want to kick the can down the road for six months on funding the government. Funding the government is the most basic responsibility we have in Congress. So to say let’s hold off for half a year is a nonstarter,” Schumer added.
Johnson on Tuesday said he would plow forward with a vote on his CR-plus-SAVE Act gambit, despite enough GOP opposition to sink the measure. Six Republicans, including hardline conservatives and defense hawks, have said they will vote against it.
Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) said Senate Democrats and House Republicans aren’t that far apart on a deal to avoid a government shutdown but emphasized that Democrats would not accept tougher voter registration requirements as part of any short-term spending deal.
“The underlying appropriations language is similar to what we’ve already passed in the Senate so it seems to me like we’re at least close in terms of the substance beyond the political issues,” he said.
“Speaker Johnson has to understand that the image of a shutdown of the government and turmoil in Congress does not help his party in November,” Durbin told reporters.
“Chuck Schumer has made it clear that we’re prepared to take a clean CR and move forward with it. If they want to engage in the politics of the moment, that’s unfortunate and it won’t pay off in the long run,” he warned.
