Government shutdown looms as Congress faces funding fight

Congress is staring down a time crunch to avert a shutdown, with both parties digging in their heels and some Republicans expressing skepticism about their own party’s plans less than a month before government funding is set to run out. 

Lawmakers return to Washington on Monday facing a Sept. 30 deadline to avert a government shutdown. And while the coming elections are thought to lessen the chances of a funding lapse, House Republicans are already preparing to square off against the Democratic-led Senate in what could be a messy, weeks-long debate over issues like voting requirements and spending.

House GOP leadership Friday rolled out a plan that involves linking a six-month stopgap, also known as a continuing resolution (CR), with legislation backed by former President Trump and hard-line conservatives that calls for stricter proof-of-citizenship requirements to register to vote.

“Today, House Republicans are taking a critically important step to keep the federal government funded and to secure our federal election process,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said after the bill was unveiled. 

“Congress has a responsibility to do both, and we must ensure that only American citizens can decide American elections.”

Conservatives have been ramping up calls in recent months for a stopgap that extends past December, hoping that Trump returns to the Oval Office in January and aiming to avoid a massive end-of-year omnibus spending bill negotiated by leadership in both chambers. 

House Republicans are expected to move quickly on the proposal, but Johnson has already faced some skepticism about the strategy’s chances of success.

Some in the party are warning not to make assumptions about how November’s elections will turn out. And one House Republican told The Hill last week that they worry about leaving a complicated appropriations process to a brand-new Congress.

“You’re going to put brand-new members that just got elected on a really tough vote on an appropriations package when they don’t even understand the appropriations process,” the member said, noting Congress will also have to deal with the debt limit in January.

And still others in the party questioned attaching the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act to a CR, noting that such a measure is all but certain to be rejected by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Meanwhile, two conservatives have already come out against the CR. Johnson can only afford to lose four Republican votes on any partisan bills.

“If Schumer wanted, he could bring the SAVE Act up for a vote and pass it. But he won’t. He wants illegals to vote in American elections,” Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) said in a post on the social platform X, referring to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

“We should be focusing on passing ALL 12 appropriations bills!” he added.

Others, however, want to see GOP leaders plow forward with the push, particularly after the party struggled to pass more than a handful of its partisan funding bills before leaving for recess in late July amid internal divides over spending policy. 

“Republicans can sit around hand-wringing and do their usual claptrap, or they can get on board, unite and then figure out how we’re going to strategize through the next two months,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), lead sponsor of the SAVE Act, told The Hill in an interview ahead of the rollout.

“But we got to figure out what we’re going to do about government funding, and we got to figure out what we’re going to do about picking a fight that differentiates us from Democrats.”

Democrats have pushed back strongly on the partisan CR plan.

“There is a clear, bipartisan path to responsibly fund the government, but instead Congressional Republicans are wasting time,” Shalanda Young, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, said in a statement responding to the GOP-backed proposal.

“Their 6-month CR approach ignores pressing needs that have real consequences for our defense, our veterans, and our communities. We urge Congress to quickly pass a bill to keep the government open and provide emergency funding for disaster needs across the country, as they have done on a bipartisan basis many times in the past.”

The spending fight also comes as lawmakers on both sides have raised alarm over a roughly $3 billion budget shortfall facing the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), another hurdle Congress must confront this month.

The agency warned lawmakers earlier this summer that millions of veterans and survivors are at risk of seeing disruptions in benefit payments in October if Congress doesn’t act by Sept. 20 — little more than a week before the government shutdown deadline.

The VA cited the PACT Act, a landmark law that passed with bipartisan support in 2022, as the key driver behind the budget shortfall, pointing to increases in enrollment in VA health care, appointments and applications benefits.

Sen. John Boozman (Ark.), the top Republican on the subcommittee that crafts annual VA funding, was pressed before recess about using the expected stopgap funding bill as a vehicle for legislation tackling the nearly $3 billion shortfall.

“I think the only problem there is that nobody really knows when that’s going to happen, but this is something that we want to make sure that we take care of veterans, and they don’t miss a check, which many of them totally depend on,” Boozman said, although he noted there’s a “possibility” of the emergency funds riding on a CR.

Senators on both sides had hoped to pass legislation addressing the budget shortfall before leaving town last month, but the effort sputtered amid increased scrutiny on what some Republicans have alleged is mismanagement at the agency.

House Republicans rolled out Friday an emergency funding plan to address the shortfall, but the party hasn’t detailed when the bill could come up for a vote.

Emily Brooks contributed.