Republicans stare down another funding failure as they head to recess

By Lauren Fox, CNN

Washington (CNN) — House Republicans are once again confronting a reality of their narrow majority: They are likely headed toward another stopgap spending bill when they return in September.

“I would anticipate a CR until after the election,” Republican Rep. Drew Ferguson of Georgia told CNN, referencing such a stopgap measure known as a continuing resolution, or CR.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, argues it’s the only option.

“In September, they’ll be a continuing resolution,” DeLauro told CNN.

Lost in the shuffle of a historic news cycle is the House GOP’s face plant on a series of spending bill over the last few weeks that leaves them in a very similar posture to last summer when then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy struggled to pass even GOP-authored spending bills because of divisions within his ranks.

Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican who has worked to get all the bills out of his committee, told reporters Wednesday that he has been saying from the beginning the most likely outcome in September was always destined to be a stopgap measure.

“I expected a CR,” he said.

“We’d get as far down the process as we could go. We’ll see what the Senate can do,” Cole said. “We are where we’re at. They’ll be a CR.”

This week alone, GOP leaders had to pull down two votes on spending bills from the schedule: financial services and agriculture. Then, on Tuesday night, as they attempted to pass a funding bill for energy and water, leaders had to pull the bill at the last minute because the votes weren’t expected to be there. This comes after a bill to fund the US Legislative Branch failed earlier this month and as leadership announced to members Wednesday morning they will go home early, meaning they won’t consider the remaining bills: Commerce Justice and Science, Labor, Health and Human Services or Housing before the August recess.

Speaker Mike Johnson downplayed the decision about sending members home earlier being a sign they’d reached a stalemate in their spending process.

“It’s not related to that,” Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, told reporters. “We’ve had a tumultuous couple of weeks in American politics, and everybody is, to be honest, still tired from our convention, and it’s just a good time to give everybody time to go home to their districts and campaign a little bit. We’ll come back and regroup.”

He said that no decisions have been made about a stopgap spending bill.

When they return, House lawmakers will have just a matter of weeks to act and, by then, focus will have to turn to making sure the government is funded with little time for Republicans to continue pursuing partisan bills, especially if they know the votes aren’t there anyway.

The next fight conservatives are gearing up for is a push for how long that short-term spending bill goes. Some want to avoid a holiday crunch and are hoping to push the deadline for another spending bill to the spring.

“I’m advocating for a CR that takes us into March,” GOP Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, a member of the House Freedom Caucus told CNN. “So we don’t get jammed with a terrible (omnibus spending package), lame duck thing … it doesn’t matter if Trump wins or loses, we don’t want an omni jammed down our throats right before Christmas.”

Cole argued that it will be up to the winner of the November presidential election to decide if they want to kick the can down the road for spending bill deadline, or have it dealt with in the lame duck so the decks are cleared when they come into office.

“I would do it into November and get the deal done,” Cole said. “That would be my advice to whoever wins, but again, I recognize I don’t make that call, the incoming President will make that call.”

The Senate for its part has not passed any of the 2025 appropriations bills on the floor. They have passed three in committee unanimously with bipartisan support, however.

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