House and Senate appropriators made enough progress in bipartisan discussions over the weekend that Democrats are putting on hold plans to introduce their own versions of a fiscal 2023 omnibus and yearlong stopgap funding bill.
Democrats had been threatening to introduce both measures on Monday to try to force Republicans’ hands. But people familiar with the discussions said they were productive enough that appropriations aides scrapped their planned weekend “readout” of the Democrat-written omnibus, a key meeting in which staff go ever each line of the text to weed out any errors before formal introduction.
Senate Appropriations Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., “feels that sufficient progress in negotiations took place over the weekend to delay the introduction of the omnibus appropriations bill for the time being. Bipartisan and bicameral negotiations continue,” a Senate Democratic aide said Sunday.
