The Senate reached an agreement on Tuesday to bring the long-awaited minibus, which combines three of the 12 appropriations bills that fund the government, up for amendment votes this week.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-WA) announced the deal on Tuesday, following weeks of negotiations to overcome about 70 holds. Votes on the bill’s 41 amendments are expected in the coming days, with a final vote likely to take place next week.
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“I am pleased to say we have reached an agreement to finally get voting on the amendments and passage of this minibus,” Murray, the chamber’s No. 3 Democrat, said from the Senate floor.
Both chambers have less than a month to pass their 12 respective appropriations bills and deliver them to the conference committee, where legislation is sent to sort out differences. Should lawmakers miss that deadline, the government will run out of money and shut down.
The House is in a state of paralysis as Republicans spar over who should be speaker, a dispute that has left the chamber unable to govern for three weeks. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) ouster marked the first time in U.S. history that a speaker was removed from office, and the attempts to replace him have supplanted appropriations bills as the leading priority.
On the Senate side, leadership has trudged on for weeks with efforts to get their appropriations bills, all 12 of which passed with bipartisan support out of the Senate Appropriations Committee, to the floor.
Senate leadership made a deal with Appropriations Committee members last week on amendment vote thresholds for the minibus, eliminating one blockade standing in the legislation’s way. A separate agreement was made with Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) on his amendment on gun access for military veterans, which Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had called a “poison pill” that his members had “serious objections” to.
Pressed by the Washington Examiner about the likelihood that Congress would need to pass another short-term continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) responded: “Well, we can’t do all the bills by Nov. 17, so we’re facing that possibility.”
Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, declined to say if he believed the minibus could pass within the next week or so.
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Asked about those comments, Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) pointed to the amendment deal as a sign of progress before noting that he expects the Senate to vote on amendments in the coming days.
“We’ll see how it all plays out, but I’m encouraged at least this week that we are going to get on a mini,” Durbin’s GOP counterpart told the Washington Examiner. “And if we can get three bills passed through the Senate, not this week but next, and then bring another one on behind that, [we can] get this process moving.”
