WASHINGTON — Rep. Scott Garrett insists Democrats are to blame for the shutdown — now in its 11th day — saying it was them who "failed to fund the federal government" and must negotiate a rollback of the Affordable Care Act.

Rep. Leonard Lance, a fellow Republican, has joined a bipartisan effort to curtail one part of the new health care law while not ruling out government funding without such concessions. And two others — Rep. Frank LoBiondo and Rep. Jon Runyan — say they are fed up, writing recently that "the fight to stop Obamacare cannot continue with the government shutdown."

Nor are the competing positions among New Jersey’s Republican lawmakers unique. Rather, their differences mirror the deepening divisions within the national party and the pressure that is building to end the impasse as the next crisis — raising the debt ceiling — looms.

There was talk among House Republican leaders Thursday of an agreement to increase the nation’s borrowing limit, which would avert a government default, but the proposal was rejected by President Obama. The hint of a deal sent the stock market soaring more than 300 points. Earlier in the day, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew had warned the Senate Finance Committee of potentially severe repercussions if an agreement was not reached.

"There’s so much disagreement," Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia, said of the Republicans. "Most of them privately understand that this was an ill-fated venture, poorly defined, with no clear goal — the wrong objective at the wrong time."

Gov. Chris Christie, a possible presidential contender in 2016, has made clear he is disgusted by the maneuvering in Washington, saying the lawmakers were being paid "to run the government, not to shut it down."

Sabato said evidence of Republicans moving away from the far right was particularly clear in a "deeply blue" state like New Jersey, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 700,000.

"There are some Republicans who aren’t going to commit suicide," he said. "Most Republicans are struggling to keep their constituents together."

Lance, from New Jersey’s 7th District — which covers a wide suburban swath of central and northern New Jersey, is a self-described proud conservative, He says he has major issues with the health care law, and wants Obama to negotiate with leaders on Capitol Hill.

For his part, he supports a bipartisan proposal to repeal one piece of the health care law — a tax on the manufacture of large medical devices. "It’s of significant consequence to the medical device industry in the Untied States," Lance said in a telephone interview. "As you know, New Jersey is the medicine chest of the country."

But, asked repeatedly, the congressman would not say if he would vote for a spending bill that would reopen the government without making changes to the Affordable Care Act.

"It is my judgment that it will not be brought to the floor," he said. "So, I want to work with colleagues — Democratic colleagues, as well as Republican colleagues."

Other Republicans have been more vague in describing their goals. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen of the 11th District said he wanted to stop the "finger-pointing and the blame-game" and to have "serious discussions to work toward real solutions."

"It can be done and it must be done," Frelinghuysen said in a statement. "We should be focusing on the larger issue of America’s debt crisis, reducing Washington spending, pro-growth tax reform, and preserving and protecting Social Security and Medicare."

Rep. Chris Smith, in the 4th District, whose staff did not respond to a request for comment, has faulted Senate Democrats for refusing to sign several bills the House passed that would have financed the government but chipped away at the health care law.

Smith has also criticized the Democrats for not approving bills that would have financed parts of the federal government.

"In the last several days the House has sent the Senate five separate legislative options to fully fund the federal government and protect Americans from different aspects of the egregiously flawed Obamacare," he wrote on his Facebook page Oct. 1.

But then there’s LoBiondo, in the 2nd District, and Runyan, in the 3rd District, who with three House colleagues from Pennsylvania wrote an op-ed article for the Philadelphia Inquirer that sharply criticized the new law for a variety of reasons. Yet they said the nation’s focus had not been on those problems.

"Instead, it’s been on the failure of Washington Republicans and Democrats to keep the government lights on," they wrote.

FISSURES APPEARING

There hasn’t been similar disagreement among Democrats from New Jersey, although there are fissures appearing in Washington, where several of them want to see the president negotiate.

Rep. Rush Holt, in the 12th District, said he thought his Democratic colleagues from New Jersey were on the same page, at least based on his informal discussions. He called the Tea Party and libertarian elements of the Republican Party "anarchists" and "arsonists."

"I don’t doubt that there are changes that should be considered in the way the health care reform is structured and the way it’s paid for and whether it’s generating enough new doctors," Holt said in a phone interview. "There’s lots of questions to be asked about it, but in the right forum, not in a hostage-taking situation."

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