Johnson introduces short-term spending bill to avoid partial shutdown

Speaker Mike Johnson is introducing a new short-term relief bill to avoid a partial government shutdown at the end of the week. This offers a temporary way out of an impasse that has repeatedly threatened federal funding over the past six months.

His proposal would extend funding for some government agencies for one week, through March 8, and the rest for another two weeks, until March 22. It would depend on whether congressional leaders finalize an emerging bipartisan deal on six of the 12 annual spending bills.

And it would leave time for top lawmakers to negotiate the other six measures, and then try to pass the spending bills individually before the next set of deadlines to fund the government. That would be a tall order for the House of Representatives, which has struggled to pass spending legislation amid Republican divisions.

Any emergency bill “would be part of a larger agreement to finalize a number of appropriations bills, allowing sufficient time for drafting the text and for members to review it before casting votes,” said Athina Lawson , a spokeswoman for Mr. Johnson.

Congressional leaders hoped to finalize the plan as soon as Wednesday, leaving time for quick votes in both chambers before the midnight deadline on Friday. The details were previously reported by Punchbowl News.

“We continue to make very good progress on an agreement, and we are very close to finalizing it,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and majority leader, said Wednesday morning. He later added: “I am hopeful that the four leaders can reach this agreement very quickly so that we can not only avoid a shutdown on Friday, but also move closer to completing the appropriations process.”

The proposal offers a glimmer of hope for avoiding a near-term shutdown, but would only end the spending stalemate that has gripped Congress for months as Republicans push out are on sharp cuts and conservative policy mandates refuse to accept a deal with the Democrats. It comes after a meeting at the White House on Tuesday in which President Biden and congressional leaders from both parties escalated pressure on Mr Johnson to accept a spending deal. Top Democrats and Republicans emerged saying they were optimistic about keeping the government funded.

“We believe we can reach agreement on these issues and avoid a government shutdown,” Mr Johnson said after the meeting, which was followed by a brief one-on-one conversation between him and Mr Biden.

The spending showdown that has brought the government to the brink of a partial shutdown this week is being fueled by Republicans in Congress who, after failing in their attempts to cut federal funding, have fought to to be linked to a number of right-wing policy dictates. .

Mr. Johnson’s proposal suggests that the appropriators believe they are close to resolving some of the policy disagreements they have been litigating over in recent days. Mr. Johnson told Republicans on a conference call this weekend not to expect many of their top policy priorities to be included, but that he expected to score some smaller victories.

Among the measures Republicans have sought are one that would restrict access to abortion drugs and another to prevent the Department of Veterans Affairs from flagging veterans deemed mentally incompetent in a federal background check required to obtain a to buy a weapon. They have also tried to block an effort by Democrats to increase funding for nutrition programs for low-income women and children.