The House and Senate will skip next week’s scheduled recess if the partial government shutdown continues.
Many federal agencies stopped operating more than four weeks ago when their funding ended. The House has passed bills to reopen the government, but Senate leaders do not plan to vote on those measures because they do not fund a southern border wall, which President Trump has said is a must.
The House plans to consider two continuing resolutions this week – one that would provide funding for two weeks and another for six weeks.
Appropriations Committee Chair Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) said those would provide the Senate with “additional options to end the shutdown while allowing time for negotiation on border security and immigration policy.”
But President Trump said Monday he will not support short-term spending bills, so it is unlikely Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will allow a vote on the continuing resolutions, though political pressure is mounting against Republicans.
Bipartisan huddles are forming in the Senate to see if there is a way out.
“There are several groups of us trying to figure out — what’s the metric to get this done,” Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said, according to CQ.
The Department of Defense is among the agencies that have remained open, because their appropriations had been authorized previously.