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Weekend Drama: Congress Kicks the Government Shutdown Can, GOP Insurgents Achieve Nothing

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  October 02, 2023 10:05 AM

Over the weekend, Congress overwhelmingly passed a government spending bill, averting a partial federal shutdown with just hours to spare.  The measure will keep the government open for approximately a month-and-a-half.  After weeks of dysfunction and GOP infighting, a 'breakthrough' finally arrived when House leaders decided to pass a 'clean' funding extension (excluding Ukraine aid, which will be considered separately).  The bill attracted near-unanimous Democratic support, in addition to a majority of the House GOP conference.  The lower chamber vote was 335-91, with all but one of the dissenting votes coming from Republicans.  In the Senate, the tally was 88-9.  All of the underlying disagreements remain unresolved, likely setting up additional showdowns as the holidays approach.  A few scattered thoughts about this can-kick:

(1) House Republicans, and specifically a small handful of holdouts, couldn't get on the same page, thus wasting an opportunity to at least apply significant political pressure to Senate Democrats -- if not notch some incremental policy victories.  Even if details on multiple appropriations bills still weren't settled, a Republican-passed short-term funding bill that avoided a shutdown, restrained some spending, and contained serious border security provisions could have really jammed Democrats in the upper chamber.  Republicans rarely win shutdown standoffs -- with very occasional exceptions -- but passing legislation to fund the government, including modest spending cuts and common-sense provisions to address the historic and catastrophic border crisis (Joe Biden's approval rating on immigration is in the low 20s), would have put Senate Democrats in an uncomfortable position.  If Chuck Schumer had refused to take up the House bill, even if 50-plus Senators supported it, the onus for a looming shutdown would have substantially shifted to Team Blue.  They would have been forced to try to explain why they were willing to shut down the government over not wanting to address the border crisis.  

Of course, none of this happened because a few House Republicans made clear that they were unwilling to get behind any realistic plan.  With the House majority's leverage squandered and the process paralyzed, a bipartisan plan stripped of conservative wins was Speaker McCarthy's only choice, with the other alternative being a partial shutdown, for which his party would shoulder much-to-all of the blame.  Here's McCarthy expressing exasperation with members of his dead-enders caucus, who surrendered his leverage to put any meaningful points on the board by reflexively opposing everything:


(2) Congratulations to the 'true conservative' victory ensured by Matt Gaetz, et al, under which Republicans achieved nothing: 


Crucially, however, this crew did secure more irresistible grievance material, which Gaetz is now channeling into a maneuver to remove McCarthy as Speaker.  Nearly all of his Republican colleagues are furious and fed up with him, so this is an interesting emerging dynamic:

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Among McCarthy's alleged sins is that he relied on Democratic votes to pass the CR (setting aside that he didn't violate the majority-of-the-majority precedent in doing so), which he was only forced to do because anti-McCarthy Republicans wouldn't agree to anything.  And to punish McCarthy for collaborating with Democrats, or whatever, Gaetz plans to...rely on Democratic votes to oust the Republican Speaker.  His whole fruitless gambit has done little more than empower Democrats, who might get even more say soon, since certain Republicans seem more intent on stymying their own party than beating the opposition.  When holdouts refused to put McCarthy over the top for Speaker back in January, many of them had constructive demands.  That group, led at the time by Chip Roy, got what they wanted, secured some desired reforms, then came on board.  This tantrum, by contrast, is pointless nihilism.  While I share many of his fellow members' frustration and disdain over Gaetz's selfish and destructive tactics, I don't think it's productive to issue counter-threats about expulsion, which is an extremely serious and uncommon occurrence.  

(3) This six-to-seven week reprieve punts the football into mid-November, which buys some time for additional negotiations.  Politically speaking, it also comes as a relief to Virginia Republicans, who are locked in a competitive battle for control of the state legislature.  The state's off-year 'midterm' elections land in early November, and the headwinds of an ugly shutdown just across the Potomac River would have been a very unwelcome development for the Old Dominion GOP, as it seeks to hold or expand its slim House of Delegates majority, while flipping the (barely) Democrat-held Senate.  The prospect of a government shutdown -- coupled with Trumpworld attacking Gov. Glenn Youngkin over rumors that donors are trying to recruit him into a quixotic 2024 presidential run (Youngkin has repeatedly dismissed this idea, without definitively slamming the door shut) -- was a heartburn-inducing combination for Republicans in the state.  At least one of these political bullets has now been dodged.

(4) The farcical sideshow of New York Democrat Jamaal Bowman pulling the fire alarm in a House office building amid weekend votes feels demoralizingly fitting for our clownish political era.  I'm not sure there's a clear-cut case for him to be criminally charged, but the "explanations" emanating from his office and his defenders are insultingly ludicrous. "I am embarrassed to admit that I activated the fire alarm, mistakenly thinking it would open the door," he told the media. "I regret this and sincerely apologize for any confusion this caused. But I want to be very clear, this was not me, in any way, trying to delay any vote." C'mon:


This is also a fun little nugget:


I'm waiting for the wider media pivot to insisting there's "no evidence" Bowman's excuses aren't credible, aside from basic common sense, the meaning of words, and video footage.  In that same vein, I couldn't forgo this snark:


Bowman is now the subject of multiple investigations into his actions.

(5) I'll leave you with President Biden's thoughts(?) on the whole government funding episode: