The concern clashes with the desires of former President Donald Trump, who has pushed Republicans to pass proof-of-citizenship voting legislation as part of any funding bill ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline and risk a partial shutdown to get it done.
But without the votes at the moment to pass the SAVE Act voter identification legislation with a six-month spending package, Congress is barreling toward a shutdown possibility at a time when voters are most engaged in the election.
“We’re 54 days away from an election, and the American people are focused on issues of affordability, grocery costs, energy costs, housing costs,” said Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), who is running for reelection in a toss-up district. “I think any shutdown would be idiotic and undermine the focus on the issues that are actually impacting the American people.”
The circumstances are nothing new: Budget disagreements typically drag out until the eleventh hour as both parties fight to include their own priorities, with a final deal often not made until hours before the deadline. And even then, the deal often fails to solve the problem but rather punts the deadline until later in the year through a continuing resolution.
That’s what lawmakers saw this time last year when House leaders struggled to pass a spending deal due to disagreements within the GOP conference and some hard-line Republicans publicly calling for a shutdown if their demands weren’t met. That ultimately resulted in then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) making a last-minute deal that relied on mostly Democratic votes to pass.
But this time around, the calls for a shutdown come just two months before a critical election — worrying some lawmakers who are running in tight races that could be upended if the government were to close.
“The American people will determine the outcome of that election, and certainly we don’t need to be shutting the government down in the interim,” Lawler added.
The House was initially scheduled to vote on House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) continuing resolution proposal Wednesday, but the package was pulled from consideration just hours before the vote due to a lack of support from GOP lawmakers. Now, the House remains at a standstill just three weeks before a lapse in government funding is set to take place.
The time crunch has some vulnerable incumbents on edge, prompting calls to pass a stopgap spending deal to avoid any sort of shutdown.
“Every day closer to a shutdown complicates our races. As soon as we adopt a CR, things settle again,” one House Republican running in a toss-up district told the Washington Examiner.
Others have criticized their colleagues who have openly called for a shutdown, noting they are in deep-red districts that likely wouldn’t feel the same effects as those fighting in tough districts.
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“I think we are in hand-to-hand combat politics and some of those in cubicles making decisions — they’ve never been in hand-to-hand combat,” another GOP lawmaker said. “We cannot shut down.”
It’s not yet clear what the plan is for the spending proposal moving forward. House GOP leaders are expected to continue discussions over the weekend before reconvening Tuesday. Congress is slated to go on recess on Sept. 27 until Election Day. If the government enters a shutdown on Oct. 1, Congress would likely be stuck in Washington, D.C., to sort a deal and off the campaign trail.
