Government shutdown looms as Congress faces September 30 deadline

Gaming out what might happen over the next couple of days on an effort to avert a government shutdown…

The newest wrinkle today is that Democrats intend to release their version of an interim spending bill soon. The question is when? One senior source said it may not come until Friday. 

The House is now expected to vote on the GOP’s “clean” CR to simply renew all funding at the present levels through November 21 on Friday. First of all, the House must pass the bill. That could be tough because Democrats believe all of their members will vote no. It’s about the math: Republicans can only lose two votes on their side and still pass a bill without assistance from across the aisle. But let’s just operate under the presumption that the House can approve the bill Friday.

Then the measure goes to the Senate.

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Getting to final approval of this bill would require two rounds of “cloture” to break a filibuster. By the book, this process could take days and certainly bleed into the weekend for the initial round.

However, Senate Republicans want to attend Charlie Kirk’s funeral on Sunday. And both sides are anxious to blame the other for blowing up an interim spending bill.

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So, staring into the crystal ball – and speaking with senior sources from both sides – the following could happen in the Senate:

The Senate gets the interim spending bill from the House on Friday afternoon. Both sides waive all of the rules and clocks in order to have two “show” votes sometime on Friday or Friday night.

Republicans will insist on having a vote to break a filibuster on the motion to proceed to the House-passed bill. That needs 60 yeas. There are 53 Senate Republicans. Fox is told that Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is expected to be a no on the procedural vote.

That means eight Democrats would have to join Republicans to vote to break the filibuster to hit the 60-vote threshold. That is not going to happen.

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The Senate would then vote in similar fashion on starting debate on the Democrats’ still-unwritten plan. The Senate would subject that vote to a 60 threshold. That too will fall short, since there are only 47 senators who caucus with the Democrats.

That produces an impasse.

“It’s good to have a logjam this early in the process,” said one senior Senate Democrat to Fox. “It shows that nothing can pass yet.”

That gambit allows both sides to make their points and get the other side on the record.

Such a scenario would prevent a weekend session in the Senate. Both the House and Senate are scheduled to be out of session next week. Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown Monday. However, the House and Senate could come back to session after Rosh Hashanah (Wednesday at nightfall) if necessary. The House and Senate have until 11:59:59 p.m. ET on September 30 to both pass a Band-Aid bill and send it to the President to avoid a shutdown.