Shutdown strategy...

GOP leaders struggle with shutdown strategy

Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell’s initial plan was rejected by members of their own party.

By RACHAEL BADE, SEUNG MIN KIM and KYLE CHENEY

Congressional Republicans are scrambling to come up with a plan to avert a government shutdown, squeezed by their own divided conference and the demands of Democrats they worry have the upper hand in negotiations.

Just 24 hours ago, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) were considering a hard-line strategy of jamming Democrats and daring them to vote no on a short-term government funding bill. While Democrats have demanded a solution for Dreamers be included in any spending deal, Republican leaders’ initial plan would have continued current spending into January without an immigration fix.

But their own members upended that strategy almost immediately: House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) put his foot down, telling GOP leaders that defense hawks would not start 2018 without a budget boost for the Pentagon.

That sent leadership back to the drawing board. Now, the latest strategy includes passing two short-term funding bills or “continuing resolutions” to keep the government running at current levels until a bigger spending deal is reached. House GOP whips told vote-counters in a closed-door meeting Thursday morning that the first would extend government funding from Dec. 8 to Dec. 22; the second would likely last until sometime in January.

“Nearly everyday we are reminded of the consequences of underfunding our men and women in uniform,” said Claude Chafin, House Armed Services Committee communications director. “Chairman Thornberry remains committed to the NDAA funding level — which overwhelming bipartisan majorities in both chambers voted to support — as the minimum amount needed to begin rebuilding readiness.”

It's far from clear, however, that the new strategy will work. Moderate Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters Thursday morning that McConnell promised her he would add Obamacare subsidy payments to the first CR in order to win her vote on tax reform. But House conservatives loathe such legislation, which they call an Obamacare bailout.

Other House rank-and-file members are not happy with leadership. The lack of a clear strategy has unnerved conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus as well as appropriators. Both groups preferred to keep the government on auto-pilot into January, convinced it would give Republicans more leverage to strike a better deal with Democrats.

But now GOP leaders will set a funding deadline just before Christmas.

“Does anything good happen a couple days before Christmas?” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus. “Nothing good happens just a few days before Christmas. We are advocating, if there has to be a CR, it should be come due after Christmas.”

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) panned the notion of a short-term spending deal that expires before Christmas as a license for irresponsible, secretive decisions by Congress.

“Our leadership knows if they do that like that — following the [John] Boehner example — they get all kinds of things in there that we later regret, the conservatives,” he said. “I hope and literally pray that we don’t do that.”

GOP leaders, however, know they need at least eight Senate Democrats to overcome a filibuster and pass any spending bill in the upper chamber. And McConnell is fearful that he won’t be able to pick off that many — and then will shoulder the blame when the government shuts down.

“They’re ready to lay down in front of the train tracks,” predicted one senior House Republican source about Democrats willing to hold the line for their demands.

Under GOP leaders' new strategy, lawmakers would use the new Dec. 22 deadline to pressure Democrats and Republicans to come up with a long-term spending solution to fund the government the rest of the year.

Several GOP leadership sources believe an agreement to continue the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will also need to be part of the equation.

Then, after Congress reaches a deal on higher caps for defense and domestic spending, lawmakers would pass another short-term CR into January to give appropriators time to fill in the details on the funding package.

Immigration discussions are likely to complicate spending negotiations further since Democrats say they won’t do anything without a solution for Dreamers.

A small group of Senate Republicans has been trying to negotiate an immigration package that includes a Dreamer fix paired with security provisions that can win over conservatives as well as Democrats. But there’s been little bipartisan consensus behind the scenes.

The GOP senators, led chiefly by Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa, recently presented an offer to Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois that paired key language from a border-security measure written by Cornyn with a pathway to legal status for Dreamers that stopped short of citizenship.

The offer given to Durbin dropped some of the most controversial provisions in Cornyn’s border security measure, such as barring federal funding from so-called sanctuary cities and language that would enact tougher penalties for undocumented immigrants who try to re-enter the country after being deported.

“One of the things we tried to do is lead with something that’s clearly more of a right-of-center position on the DACA population and border security,” said Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, one of the Republicans involved in the immigration talks.

Durbin said that plan from Republicans was unacceptable, though he said he’s still trying to negotiate with them.

“It was a 460-page border security bill by Sen. Cornyn,” Durbin said in an interview. “I told him that is just not gonna happen. It didn’t even accept the Dream Act.”

Durbin was referring to legislation that would provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought into the country as children. However, that’s all but a nonstarter for conservatives — especially if Democrats are unwilling to accept hefty new restrictions on immigration or beefed-up border security and enforcement.

The right, concerned they’re about to lose on immigration, is starting to become more vocal in their warnings to GOP leaders not to “betray the base.”

“I’m sure that all of those in the Republican Party in the House and Senate that advocated strongly against Donald Trump being elected president could join with the Democrats and pass something that would be bad for America,” Gohmert said. “But I’m telling you I really hope and pray that we don’t go against the people that got us the majority.”