House Republicans finally paved the way for consideration of more fiscal 2024 appropriations bills, setting up a busy week in which the chamber is set to consider four separate spending measures. And that’s not counting the one bill they have to pass this week in order to stop a partial government shutdown.
After several tries to get the Defense bill on the floor, the House adopted a rule to take up that legislation plus three others — Homeland Security, Agriculture and State-Foreign Operations.
The vote was 216-212, with several Republicans changing their votes to “yea” from previous attempts in appreciation for GOP leaders’ work to get the individual spending bills moving again. They include Arizona Reps. Andy Biggs and Eli Crane, Matt Rosendale of Montana and Dan Bishop of North Carolina.
Bishop said he previously objected to taking up one bill “when the deal was a set of appropriations bills at an agreed total spending level, generally intended to roll back the size of the federal bureaucracy before COVID.”
“We’re making progress toward that objective,” Bishop said before voting for the four-bill rule Tuesday.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., was the sole GOP “nay” vote, largely in protest over the underlying Defense and State-Foreign Operations bills’ inclusion of money for Ukraine.
After the rule vote, the House wasted no time getting started with debate and amendments to the Agriculture bill, the first of the four in the queue this week.
As part of a deal with conservatives, GOP appropriators trimmed back total funding in that bill by another $2.8 billion. But there was still no guarantee of passage later this week, given lingering concerns over abortion policy and other issues. Leadership had to pull the Agriculture bill from consideration in July, in part because moderates opposed a provision that would block the abortion pill mifepristone from being dispensed at pharmacies.
Democrats questioned whether Republicans were making any actual progress considering they’ve only been able to pass one spending bill so far, the Military Construction-VA bill, and it’s four days until the government would shut down.
“I’ve never seen such incompetence in this chamber, ever, ” Rules ranking member Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said during debate.
Next week, two more spending bills, Energy-Water and Interior-Environment, are on tap for consideration, despite the chamber’s previously scheduled recess. Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has vowed to put a stopgap spending measure on the floor this week, as the Senate moves forward with its own version of the bill. The Senate released the text of a short-term measure to extend federal funding at current rates on Tuesday and took the first procedural step forward its passage.
However, at least 10 House Republicans have vowed to not support any continuing resolution.
“Anyone who votes for a continuing resolution is voting to extend Nancy Pelosi’s budget and Joe Biden’s policies!” Rosendale wrote Tuesday on X, formerly known as Twitter.
If McCarthy is unable to pass a stopgap with just Republican votes, passing the Senate’s bill appears to be the only way for him to avoid a government shutdown Oct. 1, or at least keep it relatively brief.
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