House passes short-term spending bill, but legislation faces long odds in Senate

Deirdre Shesgreen and Eliza Collins | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Ryan pressures Democrats on spending bill House Speaker Paul Ryan is pressuring Democrats to back a bill preventing a weekend government shutdown and says "cool heads hopefully will prevail." (Jan. 17)

WASHINGTON — House Republicans narrowly passed a four-week spending bill on Thursday night to avert a partial government shutdown, but Democrats appeared to have enough votes to tank the measure in the Senate.

The House approved the spending bill by a vote of 230-to-197, just 30 hours before current funding runs out. The high-stakes showdown quickly moved to the Senate, where a final vote is expected on Friday as a midnight deadline looms over the proceedings.

The House bill would fund the government through Feb. 16 and reauthorize a children's health insurance program for six years. But it would punt most other spending decisions for another month.

Three Senate Republicans have said publicly that they will oppose the House bill, and a majority of Senate Democrats also plan to vote no, according to a senior Senate Democratic aide who was not authorized to share the vote tally on the record.

That tally dramatically increases the chances of a shutdown after Friday's midnight deadline. If no bill is passed by then, the federal government will begin a partial shutdown Saturday, the one-year anniversary of President Trump's inauguration.

House Republicans only won passage of the spending measure after they tamped down a revolt from conservatives who threatened to torpedo the bill.

A spokesman for Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chair of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus, said House Speaker Paul Ryan assured conservatives they would get a vote on a full year of funding for the Department of Defense — separate from any future spending bills. Republican leaders also promised Meadows they would work to build support for a hard-line GOP immigration bill, but it would only get a floor vote if it was guaranteed to pass.

Meadows also asked for the release of classified information gathered by the House Intelligence Committee, related to the FBI's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. But Ryan said they couldn't go around the House rules, according to a source familiar with the discussion.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had urged her caucus to vote against the bill. Only six Democrats voted for the spending measure, and 11 Republicans voted against it.

“The legislation that is brought to the floor today falls so very, very short of our responsibilities to the American people,” Pelosi said on the House floor during the debate.

After the House vote, Ryan told reporters that if the government shutters, Senate Democrats will be to blame. He and other Republicans argued that Democrats were holding military and other vital federal funding "hostage" in a bid to help undocumented immigrants.

Shortly after the House vote, the Senate took up the bill, but GOP leaders delayed a final vote until Friday, perhaps hoping to ramp up pressure on vulnerable Senate Democrats up for re-election in 2018.

Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., suggested that "a bipartisan deal was within reach" and that lawmakers should pass a bill to keep the government open for a few more days until that agreement can be nailed down. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., rejected that idea, saying that demand was nonsensical and unproductive.

Republicans have a narrow 51-49 majority and the spending bill will need 60 votes to pass. Sen. John McCain, a Republican, has been out for health reasons, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., came out against the short-term spending bill Wednesday.

On Thursday, two other GOP senators joined him.

"It's not because immigration isn't included," Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota said on CNN. "For me, it's a matter of defense, and it's a matter of trying to make sure in the future the message is 'let's get our work done on time.'"

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a conservative who frequently breaks with his party, announced he was also a "no" because he wants to curb government spending and doesn't feel the spending measure achieves that.

"I'll be a 'no' vote because I'm not gonna vote to continue to put the country further into debt," Paul said on Fox News.

Senate Democrats broadly oppose the short-term spending bill, called a continuing resolution, because it does not include protections for immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children and also fails to deal with a broad array of other domestic spending priorities.

"The CR leaves out so many priorities that the American people want and demand. Opioids. Veterans. Pensions," Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday. "It doesn’t resolve the fate of the Dreamers. It doesn’t include an increase in military funding that members from both sides of the aisle would support."

Trump complicated matters Thursday with an early morning tweet calling on lawmakers to fund a children’s health insurance program as part of a long-term package, not in the stop-gap funding bill.

Republicans included the health insurance extension in the short-term funding bill in the hopes of winning Democratic support.

“CHIP should be part of a long term solution, not a 30 Day, or short term, extension!” Trump tweeted Thursday morning, referring to the federal-state Children’s Health Insurance Program that serves approximately 9 million American kids.

CHIP should be part of a long term solution, not a 30 Day, or short term, extension! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018

The tweet caught lawmakers off guard and injected fresh volatility into the delicate negotiations to avert a government shutdown.

The White House quickly sought to clarify Trump's message.

"The president supports the continuing resolution introduced in the House," deputy press secretary Raj Shah said in a statement.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the Senate's second ranking Republican, posted an apparent response to Trump on Twitter, explaining that the CHIP provision in the short-term spending bill is in fact a long-term renewal of the children's health program.

The current house Continuing Resolution package has a six-year extension of CHIP, not a 30 day extension — Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) January 18, 2018

Trump’s tweet put Ryan, R-Wis., in the awkward position of having to answer questions about whether the president understood the funding legislation — and whether he is an unreliable ally in the current brinksmanship.

“It’s not causing us problems at all,” Ryan told reporters at a Thursday morning news conference. Ryan said he spoke with the president at about 10 a.m. Thursday, and "he fully supports passing” the short-term funding bill.

Trump tried to shift blame to Democrats for the stalemate, saying in remarks at the Pentagon that the sweeping tax overhaul he signed in December is already improving the economy but "the Democrats would like to blunt that by shutting down government."

McConnell also tried to ratchet up pressure on Democrats, saying he was “puzzled” about how they could possibly oppose the short-term bill, which reauthorizes the health insurance program for six years.

“All of these Democratic senators represent tens of thousands of children who depend on (CHIP),” McConnell said. “I’m more than puzzled why they would threaten to shut down the government over the entirely unrelated issue of illegal immigration.”

But that approach didn't seem to be working. Schumer called McConnell's remarks "outrageous."

“Of course Democrats support CHIP Leader McConnell, you know that darn well,” Schumer said. If Democrats were in power “we would have never never let it expire," in the first place, he said.

Congress has been unable to pass a long-term spending plan for government agencies since last year's budget ran out Sept. 30. Instead, the government has been kept open by a series of weeks-long spending measures; the current one expires Friday.

The stalemate over a long-term bill has mostly centered on two issues: trying to reach agreement on spending levels and legal protections for the "Dreamers," immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

As the Friday deadline approached, McConnell expressed concern about the growing possibility of a shutdown. In an email sent to his colleagues Thursday and obtained by USA TODAY the majority leader urged Republicans to stick together and vote for the short-term spending bill.

"We should all plan to stay through this weekend if Senate Democrats follow through and are willing to shut down the government and the Children’s Health Insurance Program because they have yet to conclude a deal on DACA," McConnell wrote. "I know we’re all frustrated by the pace of negotiations on spending, but joining Democrats to shut down the government plays right into the Democrats hand."

Read more:

GOP pushes a short-term spending bill, but it's not clear they can avoid a shutdown

Why Congress can't agree on how to fund the government

Social security benefits? Passport? What the government shutdown would mean