The continuing resolution signed into law Saturday, to keep the government funded for another month and a half, is significant less for its substance than for what its enactment says about some key power dynamics in Congress.
The bill itself is largely a wash: It doesn’t change much about what our government does or how much it spends, and neither party won much or lost much through its passage. Congress just bought itself a little time. But the way it happened was extremely consequential, and it tells us at least three important things.
First, it signals a new phase of the McCarthy speakership.
Until Saturday, Kevin McCarthy had managed to mostly keep his conference’s various factions together by avoiding any real governing choices. This was done by advancing symbolic legislation that did not have much of a chance in the Senate, and by getting one must-pass legislative package (increasing the debt ceiling) enacted by promising to do impossible things later. It was always going to be very difficult to sustain that approach in the appropriations process, because the objectives of a small but significant group of House Freedom Caucus members in that process were not really traditional legislative objectives at all and were not going to be compatible with the objectives of the rest of the Republican conference. Over the past week or so, McCarthy put those HFC members in a position that revealed that they had no intention of ever voting for spending bills that could also pass the Senate. His goal was always to make it clear to the rest of the conference that there was no way forward except a legislative vehicle that could get some Democratic votes. But it was not at all clear that he could do this without first going through a government shutdown. On Saturday, McCarthy evidently decided to just skip that shutdown (since it would be useless and pointless at best) and put a bill on the floor that would easily get the support of a majority of the House, but a bipartisan majority and not a purely Republican one.
McCarthy can no longer really pretend that his approach to running the House is not at odds with the approach that a portion of the House Freedom Caucus wants to see. After the vote Saturday, he explicitly described those HFC members as operating outside the larger Republican conference, even as he said he hoped that might change. “I welcome those 21 back in, and we would get a better and more conservative bill if they would vote with us,” he said. There is a “they” and an “us” now, and McCarthy’s fate depends upon how many of his members identify with his side of that divide.
The Speaker thus finds himself in a position very similar to the one in which his two Republican predecessors — Paul Ryan and John Boehner — ultimately found themselves, referring to himself on Saturday as “the adult in the room” and to the House Freedom Caucus as reckless and impractical. He isn’t wrong, but his move, and his rhetoric, effectively amounted to conceding that his attempt to find a different way than his predecessors had found to thread the needle of leading House Republicans had failed.
The argument that McCarthy’s chief opponents in the conference made Saturday was that he betrayed his colleagues by depending on Democrats for passage of his continuing resolution. But of course, those opponents’ threats depend on Democrats too, and all the more so. There probably aren’t more than ten or 15 Republicans who would vote to remove the Speaker at this point; they are only a threat to him because they assume all or nearly all House Democrats would vote with them to do so. They’re the ones depending on Democrats for their leverage.
Those HFC members may have overplayed their hand here, or it could be that McCarthy has. The coming weeks will tell. But clearly we are in a whole new phase for House Republicans in this Congress.
Second, the CR also signals a new phase for Senate Republicans. What happened in their conference Saturday was almost as dramatic as what happened in the House. Mitch McConnell has generally led Senate Republicans by avoiding taking strong substantive positions himself and instead facilitating consensus, focusing on process, and protecting Republican senators from hard votes. But in this appropriations process, McConnell staked out a firm substantive position regarding funding for American aid to Ukraine. He made a concerted effort to persuade his fellow Republican senators to advance the Senate version of a continuing resolution (which would have included such aid), and so in effect to jam the House on the issue. He urged his colleagues to do so as late as Saturday’s lunch conversation among Republican senators. But his colleagues (including several members of his leadership team) overruled him on Saturday, and decided to oppose cloture on the Senate version of the CR in order to allow the House to move first. McConnell announced that decision himself on Saturday afternoon, looking to take ownership of it. But it was a decision he had strenuously opposed, and which marked a bitter and unusual defeat for him within the conference.
As in the House, the tenor of the Senate Republican conference won’t be the same after this, and McConnell’s time in leadership may end on a weaker and more sour note than he had hoped and intended.
Third and finally, Saturday’s extraordinary turn of events puts Ukraine funding at the heart of the continuing struggle over appropriations. Democrats in both houses suggested that they voted for the CR on the premise that the debate over Ukraine funding is not over, and that it may return to center stage even before the broader question of funding the government does. That may well happen, and there is every reason to think that some funding for more aid will ultimately be provided, since majorities of both houses and the president would like to see that happen. But large numbers of Republicans in both houses have now made it clear that they do not prioritize that funding, and do not consider it essential. Some of them of course oppose it altogether; others support it but are willing to treat it as a bargaining chip. Democrats, including the president, have also declined to treat it as a must-pass item. When the 45-day CR runs out and the time comes to negotiate again, House Republicans are going to need something they can make the Democrats give up, and Saturday’s turn of events means they could well look to Ukraine funding to play that part again. Even if some more funding does materialize this year, American support for Ukraine has suffered a substantial setback in this process. On that front, too, things will not be the same after Saturday.
For a bill that changed very little on the spending front, these are some pretty serious implications.