Centrist Republicans eye rare team-up with Democrats to avert government shutdown
Cami Mondeaux
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A pair of centrist Republicans are considering a possible team-up with House Democrats to file a discharge position that would advance a continuing resolution in a last-ditch effort to avert a government shutdown.
Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Marc Molinaro (R-NY) have both indicated they would be open to stretching a hand across the aisle if their GOP colleagues can’t come to an agreement on spending legislation ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline, after which government funding will lapse and result in a shutdown. To do so, a bipartisan group of lawmakers may need to dust off a previous petition that was filed during the debt ceiling showdown earlier this year, framing it instead to address appropriations.
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“If there is not going to be a CR coming out of the House Republican caucus, then I will move forward with a discharge petition,” Lawler told lawmakers on Thursday.
Through a discharge petition, lawmakers can force a vote on legislation even without the approval of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The rarely-used tool would require a majority of the House to sign on, meaning at least five Republicans would need to add their signatures in order for it to come to the floor.
It’s not clear whether there’s enough support within the GOP conference to buck leadership and join Democrats in the effort, but Lawler indicated the move is entirely plausible.
“There are at least five of us, which is all that is needed to sign a discharge petition,” Lawler told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Friday. “People like Don Bacon, Brian Fitzpatrick, I’m not going to speak for anybody, but the reality is we need to govern, and we need to ensure that the American people are not hurt by these games. I called it a clown show the other day because that’s precisely what it is.”
So far, Democrats have sat out of negotiations to let the Republican majority handle the spending showdown, although party leaders have indicated they’d be willing to negotiate with their GOP colleagues.
“House Democrats are doing everything possible to avoid a government shutdown,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said in an online post. “We just need a few reasonable Republicans to break with the MAGA extremists and join us.”
There is already a piece of legislation in the House that Democrats filed earlier this year that could be amended and used as the vehicle to advance a continuing resolution. However, the process to advance a discharge petition could take several days, meaning a government shutdown is still likely.
Once a majority of the House signs on to the legislation, the bill must sit for one legislative day to ripen. After that, the bill would need to sit for seven legislative days — meaning days the House is actually in session — before any action can be taken.
Then, a lawmaker would need to raise the legislation to the floor, and the speaker would then be forced to schedule a vote within two legislative days.
According to that schedule, it could still be well into October, after the government has already shut down, for the House to take a vote. After that, the CR would then need to be passed in the Senate and signed by President Joe Biden in order to take effect.
However, the plan still stands as a viable option to pull the government out of a shutdown if spending talks continue to drag on without a finalized agreement.
Meanwhile, GOP lawmakers unveiled a new plan to advance single-subject appropriations bills, hoping to spark movement on spending legislation just nine days before the shutdown deadline.
The plan would set the appropriations topline number at around $1.526 trillion without rescissions, which is the same amount that McCarthy offered on Wednesday. The proposal would include a combined rule that advances four appropriations bills at once, teeing them up for votes sometime next week.
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Some hard-line conservatives, such as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), have remained adamant they will not support a continuing resolution or stopgap measure of any kind, warning their centrist colleagues that collaborating with Democrats would be a mistake.
“If moderate Republicans sign a discharge petition with Democrats, they are signing their own political death warrant, and they are handing it to their executioner because it won’t be me and the conservatives off hunting the moderates,” Gaetz said on Thursday. “It’ll be the very Democrats that they would be working with under that hypothesis.”