GOP raises shutdown threat over shots edict

Can stall U.S. funding, some warn

WASHINGTON — The risk of a brief U.S. government shutdown over the weekend rose Wednesday with congressional Republicans and Democrats split over a short-term spending bill needed to keep agencies running and some GOP lawmakers threatening a holdup to protest vaccine mandates.

The emerging conservative campaign quickly divided GOP lawmakers, angered congressional Democrats and threatened to unravel days of delicate bipartisan talks on Capitol Hill, just three days before a current federal spending agreement is set to expire.

“We’re opposed to the mandate,” said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis. “We don’t want the federal government to be able to fund them in any way, shape or form.”

Under Biden’s directive, issued earlier this year, private businesses that employ more than 100 workers must require vaccinations or implement a comprehensive testing strategy.

The president has imposed similar policies tar

geting federal employees and military service members, hoping to bring to heel a pandemic that has already killed more than 780,000 Americans. But Biden’s approach has drawn a slew of legal challenges still playing out in federal courts, while prompting a fierce, vocal reaction among Republicans on Capitol Hill, who see the mandate as unconstitutional.

GOP lawmakers have launched repeated legislative salvos to defund or eliminate it, only to be stymied so far in the House and Senate, where they are outnumbered by Democrats.

Kansas U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall led a Nov. 3 letter signed by 10 other Senate Republicans pledging to oppose all efforts to implement the vaccine mandate, including by objecting to government funding bills. Marshall’s office pointed to that release when asked Wednesday about whether the senator would hold up the funding bill.

“I think we should use the leverage we have to fight against what are illegal, unconstitutional and abusive mandates from a president and an administration that knows they are violating the law,” Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas told reporters.

The GOP opposition reflected conservatives’ still-intensifying push to turn the pandemic into a political weapon, much as they have fought over the past year against masking requirements, social distancing restrictions and other public health policies. Their latest salvo came on the very day when the Biden administration announced the first known U.S. case of a new, concerning coronavirus variant knows as omicron.

The Republican push quickly drew sharp rebukes among Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer of New York. Taking to the chamber floor to open the day’s debate, Schumer said the two sides are making “progress” in their talks

— but he still lamented the possibility that Republicans might bring the government to a halt.

“I hope that a small group of Republicans don’t choose obstruction and try to shut down the government,” Schumer said. “It’s always easy to say you want to shut down the government over something I care about, this one cares about, that one. If everyone did that we’d have chaos. We need to come together and keep the government open.”

Even some Republicans remained uneasy about the idea. Exiting a private party lunch, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said there was “a lot of discussions about our alternatives and consequences,” highlighting the potential that the strategy could backfire politically.

“I don’t think shutdowns benefit people, like some folks think they do,” he said. “Because you’re not stopping, you’re just delaying and creating a lot of uncertainty in the interim.”

Marshall and other conservative lawmakers did signal they still could be open to a deal, potentially averting a short-term shutdown. They appeared open to allowing debate to proceed, provided they can have a vote on an amendment to terminate funding for Biden’s vaccine and testing mandates.

“This is a chance to correct a wrong,” Marshall said.

A similar attempt to quash the vaccine rules failed earlier this fall.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Tuesday that he was confident a break in government funding could be avoided.

“We won’t shut down,” McConnell said.

UNEXPECTED SNAG

Still, the vaccine mandate-related objections have raised the prospect of at least a temporary lapse in funding, presenting the first hiccup for Senate Democrats in a chaotic month, as they juggle efforts to fund the government, raise the debt ceiling, complete a hulking military policy bill and enact their marquee $2.2 trillion domestic policy legislation — all before Christmas Day.

Entering the week, Democrats and many Republicans initially thought they would fund the government with ease.

Lawmakers aimed to pass a bill that would finance federal agencies and initiatives at least into late January, buying themselves more time to craft a series of longer-term measures that could sustain Washington through the rest of the fiscal year. Practically no one on Capitol Hill appeared to have an appetite for reviving the brinkmanship of years past, including a recent September showdown that nearly brought the government to a halt.

By Wednesday, though, the very catastrophe that congressional leaders had strained so hard to avoid seemed to be a real possibility — offering a fresh glimpse of the rancor that has hamstrung Capitol Hill from fulfilling even the most basic duties of government in recent months.

For one thing, House and Senate leaders had yet to settle on the exact duration of their short-term funding measure.

Democrats hoped to fund the government until sometime in late January, as they seek to keep pressure on Republicans to come to the table and negotiate a dozen longer-term appropriations bills that would enact Biden’s budgetary goals. Republicans, however, preferred to see funding extended until February or later, as they try to whittle down some of the president’s spending ambitions.

Lawmakers were also debating additional spending provisions, including additional funding for Afghan refugees and a provision averting billions of dollars in cuts to Medicare, subsidies and other programs. But even if an agreement is reached, the Senate would require unanimous support to waive a number of procedural steps and swiftly take up the legislation before the Friday deadline.

The top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, still expressed some measure of confidence that lawmakers could reach a compromise in time.

“I’d like February, March would suit me — April, May,” Shelby said. “I think it gives us more time to seriously sit down.”

The policy disputes could carry broad ramifications. Until negotiators can finalize a bill, the House can’t bring the funding stopgap to a vote. And without House action, the Senate generally cannot begin its lengthy debate process, either.

DIGGING IN

In some circumstances, the Senate still can move expediently, resolving by unanimous consent to cut its own deliberations short. But some Republicans have shown little interest in speeding up the clock, even though the chamber is poised to approve the short-term spending measure eventually anyway.

The delays raise the specter for a shutdown beginning midnight Friday and carrying into the weekend, which might have little demonstrable effect on most Americans. A similar fiscal stalemate in 2018, for example, prevented some trash collection at national parks and affected some federal workers’ phones. Yet, every hour of obstruction in the days ahead threatens to push the fight further into next week, when a temporary shutdown would carry more dire effects, perhaps furloughing millions of federal workers.

The mere prospect of such a shutdown infuriated Democrats, who blasted the GOP on Wednesday as the government is grappling with the arrival of a new, potentially more dangerous coronavirus variant.

“Totally irresponsible,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. “It’s just amazing to me. Hundreds of thousands of people have died — we’re getting close to 800,000 — and for them to even consider something like that is completely irresponsible.”

Republicans, however, showed scant willingness to back down. Marshall, for one, signaled he and his colleagues would not be willing to agree to speed up the Senate debate unless Congress cancels funding to carry out Biden’s vaccine and testing policy. He later told reporters another amendment vote is “something we would be willing to talk about.”

“We’ll see,” he said. “It’s a long time between now and Friday, I think. But I think at a minimum, it deserves a 50-person vote. I think it’s very germane. And again, this should be about, is Senator Schumer willing to shut down the economy over this?”

In taking their early stand, the GOP lawmakers’ obstruction echoed earlier demands from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who took to Twitter this weekend to encourage her party to let the government run out of money as a way to “STOP the vaccine mandates.”

By Wednesday, the conservative House Freedom Caucus sent its own message to McConnell, urging him in a letter to “deny timely passage” of the spending measure unless it blocks funding for vaccine and testing mandates.

But the GOP strategy also appeared to leave even some of the party’s own lawmakers uneasy.

“It’s true that I do not support a vaccine mandate,” said Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota. “The question is, what’s the most appropriate way to respond? I think, in this particular case, I am not signing the letter that’s being sent out. I think there’s a better way to do it.”

“A shutdown is just a useless pathway,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va

Democrats criticized Republicans on Wednesday for threatening to shutter the government over a policy that is aimed at stemming the spread of the pandemic.

“The fact that they want to walk right up to a government shutdown over a public health issue should frighten the American public,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif. “That’s exactly what they’re advocating here.”

Polling from The Associated Press shows Americans are divided over Biden’s effort to vaccinate workers, with Democrats overwhelmingly for it while most Republicans are against it.

Some Republicans prefer an effort from Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., to simply vote to reject the administration’s mandates in a congressional review action expected next week, separate from the federal funding fight.

From the White House, Press Secretary Jen Psaki was confident the government funding bill would be approved by Congress and routine federal operations would not shut down this weekend.

“We have every confidence they will move forward and prevent the government from shutting down,” Psaki said.

She was highly critical of Republicans seeking to prevent the mandates from going into effect.

“These supporters of the former president are advocating for shutting the federal government down, so that 20% of the public who are refusing to get vaccinated or tested can be free to infect their co-workers, our children, filling hospitals,” Psaki said.

“They want to shut the government down in order to advocate for people to assert that on society.”

But even if an agreement is reached, the Senate would require unanimous support to waive a number of procedural steps and swiftly take up the legislation before the Friday deadline.

Information for this article was contributed by Tony Romm, Mike DeBonis and Seung Min Kim of The Washington Post; by Erik Wasson and Jack Fitzpatrick of Bloomberg News; by Lisa Mascaro and Kevin Freking of The Associated Press; and by Emily Cochrane of The New York Times.