Top U.S. Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer on Thursday said he was taking the first procedural step toward passing a stopgap funding bill to avert a partial government shutdown starting late next week.
That came as Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson faced opposition from within his own narrow majority to a deal reached with Schumer on a $1.59 trillion top-line spending number for government agencies in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
Schumer said the Senate can could begin voting on it when it returns on Tuesday from a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday recess. Little time remains before funding runs out on Jan. 19 for some sprawling federal agencies, including the departments of Agriculture and Transportation.
He did not say now long the stopgap bill would be in effect.
The U.S. came close to a partial government shutdown last fall, amid opposition by hardline House Republicans who ousted Johnson's predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, over reaching a bipartisan stopgap spending deal with Schumer.
"There are those on the hard right over in the House who think they can bully their colleagues and the House and the country into a shutdown," Schumer said.
Johnson will try to restart his party’s legislative machinery on Thursday, a day after a dozen hardline Republicans shut down the chamber's legislative business to protest the bipartisan spending deal.
House lawmakers are due to reconsider an unrelated measure that was blocked by hardliners on Wednesday, amid signs that their revolt could subside.
Representative Ralph Norman, a prominent hardliner who joined the Wednesday revolt, told Reuters that he intended to vote in favor of the blocked measure now, after a meeting with Johnson at which members of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus laid out their demands for lower spending levels and border restrictions.
"He's working with us," said Norman, who emphasized that there was no formal deal with Johnson. "The good thing about Mike is that he's working on it. He understands the seriousness of our concerns."
