Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman challenged the House to pass a spending bill by promising he would sue if they prevented a government shutdown.
Fetterman’s casual attire came into question after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer abolished the business attire requirement on the Senate floor, which meant a suit and tie for men.
The freshman senator went on a raw offense against X after Republicans criticized his attire. “I think if I vape and get the pig during a live musical, they’ll make me a folk hero,” Fetterman wrote Tuesday, referencing the recent Beetlejuice controversy involving Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.
Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman challenged the House to pass a spending bill by promising he would sue if they prevented a government shutdown
“If those crooks in the House of Representatives stop trying to take down our government and fully support Ukraine, I will save democracy by wearing a suit on the Senate floor next week,” said the senator, whose signature Carhartt robe has been the subject of many discussions. examined this week, wrote on X
Republican Party negotiators in the House of Representatives on the Short-Term Resolution Continuation Act declared it “dead in the water” on Wednesday as they scheduled an emergency conference-wide meeting for that afternoon.
“I honestly don’t know what to say to my fellow Republicans other than you’re going to eat a sandwich and you probably deserve it,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told reporters of the holdouts refusing to come to the table on a deal.
House Republicans couldn’t even advance a highly popular defense spending bill Tuesday — with opposition from five conservatives who thwarted efforts to pass just one of 12 appropriations bills.
So far, only one bill — for military construction and veterans affairs — has passed the House of Representatives, with 10 days to go before the end of the fiscal year. The Senate has not passed any.
It is unclear whether they will proceed as planned with a vote on a short-term continuing resolution (CR), which is likely to receive even less support than the defense appropriations bill.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy declined to say whether he would bring the bill to the floor on Thursday as originally planned. “We’re not going to give up, we’re never going to stop,” he said vaguely.
The CR would drop the September 30 deadline, which would lead to a government shutdown, until October 30.
Republican Party negotiators in the House of Representatives worked Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning to tweak an agreement between the right-wing Freedom Caucus and the pragmatic Main Street Caucus to shore up support after more than a dozen Republicans, mostly from the Freedom Caucus (HFC ), said they would oppose it. .
The deal would have kept funding for Defense and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) at 2023 levels and led to an eight percent cut to all other agencies.
In addition to E-Verify, it would also implement the provisions of the Republicans’ border bill, HR 2. The bill leaves out funding for Ukraine and disaster relief.
An amendment from the Republican Study Committee (RSC) would make the CR deal even more conservative — cutting discretionary spending by $130 billion to $1.47 trillion — a top line that some conservatives have demanded after House debates about it debts of the Republicans had been agreed upon. cap legislation – the Limit, Save, Grow Act.
Roy, who helped draft the CR bill, predicted that the RSC amendment would not change the tide of the deal as he pushed back against Republican Party leadership for not releasing the details of the spending battle sooner. had brought.
“Leadership should have asked the questions we have now in July. We should have done this. “We shouldn’t have been broken for six weeks,” he said. “But here we are.”
All this is for a bill that would not pass the Senate, but would give the House a starting point to work on a deal to keep the government open while lawmakers sort out their differences over twelve separate appropriations bills .
Funding for Ukraine is an even bigger question – McCarthy emphasized again on Wednesday that such funding will not be part of an emergency bill to keep the government running.
Meanwhile, moderate groups on the right and left have begun coming together to find a way to open up the government, bringing Republicans and Democrats together for a majority vote in the House of Representatives.
McCarthy would risk sparking a campaign to oust his speakership if he makes a deal with Democrats on the spending legislation. But Democrats have begun to secure votes from moderate Republicans on their own continuing resolution that they would force to the floor through a discharge petition.
Even Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said Wednesday he would vote with Democrats on a “clean” continuing resolution, which would extend funding at the 2023 level set under the previous Democratic House and Senate, to ensure a prevent shutdown.
If all Democrats and five Republicans sign a discharge petition, they can bypass leadership and force a CR on the floor.
“Everyone should know that there are more than enough votes in Congress to prevent a shutdown and pass a clean CR, including disaster relief and additional funding for Ukraine,” Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., wrote on X.
