(CNN) — Congress remained on track Friday to trigger a government shutdown, as Speaker Kevin McCarthy suffered another high-profile defeat when the House failed to advance a last-ditch stopgap bill to extend government funding beyond Saturday.
The failed vote will ramp up pressure on McCarthy who is facing the most significant challenge to his leadership to date. The speaker is locked in a conflict with hardline conservatives who oppose passing a short-term extension to avert a shutdown, arguing Congress should instead focus on passing full-year spending bills.
After the House failed to pass the stopgap bill, McCarthy told Republicans at a closed-door conference meeting there aren’t many options to avoid a shutdown, according to sources in room.
He told his members they can either approve the GOP’s stop-gap plan that failed, accept a Senate proposal, put a “clean” stopgap on the floor to dare Democrats to block it — or shut down the government. A large number of House Republicans have already vocally criticized the Senate proposal, making that unlikely to pass in the chamber.
During the closed-door conference meeting, House GOP leadership also proposed that members stay in session the next two weeks to vote on more individual appropriations bills, according to multiple lawmakers in the room.
That plan would not help avert a government shutdown this weekend, but Republicans are hoping that leadership’s proposed schedule change might convince some holdouts to support a short-term funding option in the meantime.
With Congress at an impasse, the federal government is preparing for a shutdown when government funding runs out at midnight on Saturday.
Twenty-one Republicans crossed over to vote with every Democrat against the stopgap bill on Friday for a vote of 232-198. The measure – a 30-day extension that would slash funding from current levels – also includes strict GOP-led border policies. House GOP leadership hoped that border security provisions tucked into the temporary measure would force hardliners’ hands – but it was not enough.
GOP Rep. Ken Buck, who voted against the House GOP stopgap funding measure Friday, said the failed effort was a “no confidence vote” in McCarthy.
“This was a vote where people didn’t have faith that Kevin McCarthy was going to do the right thing. We passed a vote on the debt ceiling. He went and negotiated a significantly higher number with President Biden. People don’t have faith that when it comes time to negotiate he’s going to do the right thing,” Buck told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead.”
On Thursday, the speaker refused to say whether he would try to cut a deal with Democrats – a step that could prompt conservatives to move to oust him from the speakership.
“I still got time, I got time to do other things,” McCarthy responded when asked by CNN what will happen if the stopgap bill fails.
Pressed further on whether he has a plan B, McCarthy said, “In this job you got to have an ABCDEF and G,” and he laughed when asked what letter he was currently on.
“I haven’t spelled my name out completely,” the California Republican said.
A shutdown could have enormous impacts across the country, in consequential areas ranging from air travel to clean drinking water, as many government operations would come to a halt, while services deemed “essential” would continue.
House GOP leaders brought a series of spending bills to the floor Thursday evening as they try to show conservatives they are working in good faith to advance full-year funding bills.
The House passed several of those spending bills, but the measures would not stop a shutdown and have no hope of passing in the Senate.
At the end of the night, a bill to fund the Department of Agriculture failed to pass on the floor with 27 Republicans voting against it, highlighting once again the difficulty Republicans have had coalescing around spending bills.
Meanwhile, the Senate is working to advance a bipartisan stopgap bill that would keep the government open through November 17 and provide additional aid to Ukraine and disaster relief. McCarthy has so far dismissed that bill.
It could take until Monday to pass the Senate’s bill to keep the government open if GOP Sen. Rand Paul slows down the process – as he has vowed to do – over his demand that the bill drop the $6.2 billion in aid to Ukraine it contains, according to senators. That would put it past the Saturday evening shutdown deadline.
About The Author
More Stories
Man dies following stabbing incident
Cancer research, charities to benefit from event
Player of the Week – Prime Minister’s Cup