Hey, it’s another shutdown showdown. Or at least we’re going through the motions of the possibility of turning the lights out. No one seems to think it will happen, and with good reason.
That good reason? As soon as they pass a bill to fund the government through the election, Members of Congress can go home for the year. Until then, they’re stuck in Washington. That’s why all the veteran Congress-watchers and experts fully expect that the current impasse will end well before the current deadline at the end of the month.
So that’ll probably happen.
Unless it doesn’t. It really shouldn’t.
But since it might, it’s time to go over the basics.
To begin with, what we’re talking about here is the need to pass the bills that fund the government for the next year. Well, except for the large portions of the government (such as Social Security) that run on automatic pilot. Congress isn’t close to passing these bills, so the normal back-up plan is to pass a “continuing resolution” — CR — that keeps everything going while they negotiate. Or, as in this case, until they’re ready to begin negotiating.1
That’s not great, since it means keeping everything at the same levels instead of adjusting for this year’s needs and preferences, and because it costs money to even get close to the deadline. But it’s only a big deal if they fail to pass the CR by the deadline, in which case the government has no funding, agencies can’t spend money they don’t have, and the doors close.
The first thing to know is not to be scared by articles counting down how little time remains on the shutdown clock. That’s because Congress can easily pass a short-term CR, keeping the doors open for any length of time they want, very quickly if necessary. It’s not unusual at all for a week-long CR, or even a one or two day CR, to pass while negotiations continue.2
Which gets to a key point: Government shutdowns longer than, say, a long weekend never happen because congressional negotiators run out of time. They happen when someone wants a shutdown and has the votes to make it happen.
That gets us to the second key point: Shutdowns as they happen aren’t a discrete event (as, say, a government default would be); a shutdown is a step within a larger process of negotiations, and there’s nothing about shutting the government down that necessarily makes reaching an eventual agreement any easier – or automatically gives either side of the negotiations any advantage.
Unfortunately, some Republicans have repeatedly botched this point. Some of them seem to act as if a shutdown was itself some sort of end game, only to find every time it happens that it isn’t. (To be fair, some of them are in safe seats and care much more about appearing on Fox News and other such outlets than they do in making public policy). Others seem to believe that a shutdown automatically gives them incredibly negotiating leverage because only Democrats (and, perhaps, moderate Republicans) care about government programs. Only to discover every time there’s an extended stoppage that their constituents, too, get very upset when the programs they rely on are delayed.3 Indeed, the instigators of every extended shutdown have lost the public opinion battle and at best got the same deal they could have had if the government’s doors remained open.
And that leads to the third key point: At the end of the day, either before or after an extended shutdown, there will be a deal, and it will be supported by the party leaders in both chambers as well as the president.4 Combined with the previous point, it gives party leaders a strong incentive against deliberately causing a shutdown, because they know – or at least they should know – going in that it will end with a bipartisan deal they’ll have to support. If they’re worried about being denounced as sellouts before the deadline (when most people are paying little attention to Congress), it doesn’t take too much foresight to realize they should be more worried about such accusations after an extended period with the government not operating. When everyone is much crankier.
Put it all together, and there’s really no logic in anyone forcing a government shutdown. And given that Members are eager to get home to campaign, it’s not even very likely they’ll get too close to the deadline.
What could go wrong? Well, this is still the 118th Congress, with a massively dysfunctional House Republican majority, and a still-inexperienced Speaker. However, Speaker Mike Johnson seems to understand that a deliberate shutdown is a bad idea for Republicans and for himself.
The real threat is that the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, has been pushing for a shutdown. But as was the case when he was president, congressional Republicans may not like contradicting Trump publicly, but they are perfectly able to ignore him when his commands are not in their interest.
Oh — you might have notice that I entirely skipped any of the substance they’re fighting over. That’s deliberate, because it doesn’t really matter, but for the record the issues seem to be the length of the coming stopgap spending bill, which some House Republicans want to extend all the way to March but Democrats and many Republicans want to expire in December. And a messaging bill Trump and the Republicans support to make it illegal for non-citizens to vote, which would be a lot more urgent if it wasn’t already illegal and not actually happening. The truth is though that Trump and many Republicans just like the idea of shutdowns as a form of chaos that prove how tough they are, even though it never actually turns out that way. See key point two, above.
Look: Nothing is certain, and there are certainly at least a handful of House Republicans who think it would be a good idea to shut down the government, blame the Democrats, and go home and leave the doors closed until after the election on the theory that the only voters they care about will believe whatever they’re told. But it’s unlikely that many rank-and-file Republicans will join them.
The House has passed a handful of the spending bills, and the Senate hasn’t passed any, although the bipartisan agreements that have been reached in the Senate Appropriations Committee are probably the best guides to the future final agreements.
Mostly. The House can act very quickly as long as a majority is willing to vote for something. The Senate can be more of a challenge, with even a single Senator able to hold things up for a while. But there are lots of examples of short-term CRs passing very quickly.
Even Newt Gingrich, who initiated the first extended government shutdowns in 1995, didn’t buy that Republicans would automatically win because only Democrats cared about government. He did mistakenly believe, however, that Bill Clinton was amazingly weak and would cave if pushed at all. As it turned out, Clinton was not a weak negotiator at all (and Gingrich was!).
The most likely exception would be a House minority leader during a period of divided government when the president’s party is the House majority (and the Senate minority); in such cases the House minority might successfully refuse to go along with a bipartisan Senate deal and make the House majority supply all the votes. That won’t apply this time, since House Democrats will need at least some Republican votes to pass anything — and they’ll need Speaker Johnson to bring any agreement to the House floor.
Always good to remember how screwed up this process is. Is there a chance it might be done away with at some point in history?