AP Photo House GOP likely to abandon debt-limit bill The move throws into question how Congress will meet a Nov. 3 deadline.

House GOP leadership is likely to abandon tentative plans to vote on a Republican Study Committee-penned bill to lift the debt limit, throwing into question how Congress is going to lift the borrowing limit before a Nov. 3 deadline.

House leadership was considering a vote on the Terms of Credit Act Friday, but several GOP insiders said they will not put the bill on the floor. A Wednesday night whip check showed the party several dozen votes short, according to multiple sources familiar with the count.


The legislation would lift the debt limit until 2017, attempt to freeze all agency regulations for at least a year, try to force Congress to stay in session until it passes all appropriations bills and forbid the Senate from filibustering spending bills after October.

The measure would not have passed the Senate or garnered President Barack Obama's signature, but it was seen as a first step before the inevitable: a vote on a debt limit bill without strings.

Now, House Republican leadership is saying Democrats need to give up something in order to convince a "minimum number" of GOP lawmakers to avoid a lapse in the borrowing limit.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) bashed Republicans for their disarray on the debt ceiling during a news conference on Thursday.

"It’s only a matter of hours until we have to act in the House. We have to act really by tomorrow. This calendar of chaos … is really coming down to hours, days, weeks," Pelosi told reporters.

Senate Republicans had planned to take up the House bill and amend it in a manner that could pass the Senate, potentially making it a clean debt-ceiling measure to attract Democratic votes. But GOP leaders said they were planning contingency plans in case the House stumbles, senators said.

"Shame on us if we haven't sort of thought about that in advance and war-gamed it," said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn in an interview. "It's possible we could pass something, and we send it back to the House, and they pass it before it gets to the president. We're getting ready to get on a glide path to get to a conclusion here."

Burgess Everett and Lauren French contributed to this report.