The House will continue Wednesday to try to pass small-bore spending bills to reopen slices of the federal government, as a shutdown with no end in sight enters its second day.
Bills to reopen some national parks, fund veterans affairs and allow the District of Columbia to use local revenue to fund government failed Tuesday under a fast-track procedure that required a two-thirds majority for passage. House Republican leaders will bring those bills up again on Wednesday with time for more floor debate, and a lower, simple-majority threshold for passage. The House GOP will also try to fund the National Institutes of Health, after reports surfaced Wednesday that children with cancer would be turned away from clinical trials.
Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) decision to bring these bills to the floor is not without risk for Republicans. Democrats would like to use a procedural maneuver — called a motion to recommit — to force a vote on a so-called “clean” continuing resolution. That legislation could re-open government, and fund the health care law. If given the opportunity to bring that bill up, just 16 Republicans would have to join with 200 Democrats to pass the bill through the House. But aides in both parties say such a bill is likely to not be germane to these targeted spending bills.
The action in the House is mostly stagecraft, since Democrats in the Senate and White House say they want to fund the whole government, not just a few agencies. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would move to block the House GOP legislation if they are approved by the lower chamber.
Washington is still frozen with partisanship, as the government shutdown continues.
Republicans in the House are hampered by roughly one to two dozen hard-line conservatives, who insist on changes to the health care law as a price of funding the government. Democrats say they aren’t going to negotiate health care policy on a bill that funds the federal government for just a few months.
The next 24 to 48 hours may prove critical in the resolving the impasse. So far, Boehner and his top lieutenants, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), have been able to keep any large groups of their members from bolting. Roughly a dozen House Republicans have already announced publicly – and individually – that they are ready to give up the fight over Obamacare.
(POLITICO’s full government shutdown coverage)
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), a leader in the defund Obamacare movement, suggested the government funding fight may not be the place to try to derail President Barack Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment. And Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) has also signaled his uneasiness with the shutdown, telling conservative bloggers on Tuesday that “any opportunity to defund Obamacare through the CR, if there was such an opportunity, is now gone,” according to the Washington Examiner.
If the House GOP unity starts to crumble, then Boehner may be forced to cave in to Democratic demands. So far, he has shown no signs of doing so. Boehner may keep the House in all weekend, GOP leadership aides said, knowing that if members go home and get hammered by constituents angry about the shutdown, they will return to demand a clean funding bill.
Republicans and Democrats are hauling reporters and cameras all over the Capitol to show the effects of a shutdown. The GOP had eight negotiators sit alone at a conference table Tuesday, saying they are ready to work with Democrats to solve this budgetary impasse. Senate Democrats have refused to negotiate, saying they want a clean CR. And on Wednesday, Senate Democrats will bring furloughed federal workers to the Capitol, in an attempt to humanize the shutdown.
No progress on Hill as shutdown enters second day
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