A week into the House’s chaotic attempt to pass a government funding deal, senators are signaling they're open to near anything — except moving on their own government-funding deal first.
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said “the House needs to do its job” when asked whether the Senate needs to get moving on its own bill. Asked what happens if the House is unable to pass something before a government shutdown deadline in less than 12 hours, Tester replied: “It's what the people elected.”
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), another Senate appropriator, said House members have to “sort it themselves.” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, leading Democrat for the House Appropriations Committee, also said: “We’re going to move in the House. We have to move in the House.”
There is some movement in the House as of Friday morning — the latest plan is to break up the deal into three different pieces, including government funding, disaster relief and farm aid. If the bills come as three individual pieces to the Senate, it could be a difficult lift to get individual time agreements on all three bills, since any one senator could object. If the House wraps up the bills into one package before sending it over, it would only require one-time agreement.
Without a time agreement, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer would have to wait days before he could get a passage vote. And if the bill is wrapped together in the Senate and not in the House, it would have to go back to the House and be approved before heading to the president’s desk. There's no guarantee House lawmakers will stick around if they manage to clear something through their chamber.
But senators aren’t placing much stake in the newest House plan until they see actual action. Soon-to-be Senate GOP Leader John Thune said he’s continuing to wait on the House to pass something, stating: “If they can kick a bill out this morning that funds the government for the foreseeable — needed — future, then we’ll take it up as it comes to us.”
There's no appetite for a shutdown among senators. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of current Senate GOP leadership, said Friday that “shutting down the government is a useless exercise” and “continuing government is, I think, crucial.”
But as for whether the plan has legs?
“Will it work? I'm not going to Vegas to put bets on anything,” she said. “We're sort of in that ‘don't react to anything' space, because nobody knows what's going on.”
Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.
