The House approved a $1.2 trillion spending package Friday, hours before a midnight government shutdown deadline — forcing the Senate up against a ticking clock to take up and pass the measure. The bill, which passed by a 286 to 134 vote, would fund about three-quarters of the federal government for the next six months, while also raising military pay, eliminating U.S. funding for the U.N. relief agency for Palestinians and bolstering security at the U.S.-Mexico border. The legislation’s passage in the Senate is not in doubt — it has the support of President Biden, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). But a single senator can throw up procedural roadblocks that push the government past the deadline and force a vote days later.
“That so few poison pills became law after we were threatened with so many is a big victory for ordinary Americans and for common sense in the annual budget process,” said Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of Public Citizen and co-chair of the Clean Budget Coalition. “Spending bills are no place for attacks on women’s reproductive rights, our democracy, our environment, communities of color, LGBTQ+ Americans, and more. The Clean Budget Coalition is extremely grateful to all the lawmakers – especially the appropriators and caucus leaders – who fought for well over a year to remove the extreme and harmful riders that never belonged in the first place.”
Democrats staved off most of the policy riders that Republicans sought to include in the package. For example, they beat back an effort to block new rules that expand access to the abortion pill mifepristone. They were also able to fully fund a nutrition program for low-income women, infants and children, providing about $7 billion for what is known as the WIC program. That’s a $1 billion increase from the previous year. Republicans were able to achieve some policy wins, however. One provision, for example, will prevent the sale of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China. Another provision strengthens gun rights for certain veterans, though opponents of the move said it could make it easier for those with very serious mental health conditions like dementia to obtain a firearm.
Congress is expected to vote this week on a consolidated minibus of the six spending bills due by March 8, which excluded most of the poison pill policy riders House Republicans added to their draft spending bills. Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of Public Citizen and co-chair of the Clean Budget Coalition, released the following statement: “The fight against partisan poison pill policies isn’t over. As we turn to the second ‘minibus,’ we must redouble our efforts to keep out toxic provisions that would harm consumers, our health, our environment, and take away our choices. The Clean Budget Coalition urges Members of Congress, Senators, and the White House to hold the line on riders as we head towards the second, March 22 funding deadline.”
“Reportedly 95% of the budget deal is done, and extreme MAGA poison pill demands are the outstanding topics in the negotiations. That their contentious, unpopular riders are the sticking point means that the House GOP would be directly responsible for any shutdown. Speaker Johnson is seemingly aware of this and hopefully will choose to govern and keep us from the brink. As we all know, there are real life consequences to regular people for shutting down the government.”
Policy riders pushed by House Republicans have become a major obstacle to a deal to avert a partial shutdown this weekend. Some of their colleagues across the Capitol are telling them to drop it. Lawmakers are impatiently waiting for congressional leaders to announce a spending deal, as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker Mike Johnson trade barbs over who is at fault for holding up negotiations. But neither side disputes that House GOP leaders are pushing partisan policy riders, such as a ban on mail delivery of abortion pills and a pilot program proposed by Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) that would restrict SNAP food aid purchases. Many Senate Republicans don’t see the point. “The bills need to be as clean as they can be,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said Monday evening. When asked about the riders the House GOP specifically is pushing, Capito pointed out that she has already voted for a Senate spending bill that didn’t include any of the controversial riders.
There are just four days until a partial government shutdown, and there’s still no agreement yet on the FY 2024 spending bills. The House is out of session until Wednesday. The Senate came back to town last night. And President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are meeting with the “Big Four” congressional leaders this morning at the White House. This group — Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, plus Biden and Harris — represents the key decision-making nucleus of the federal government. It’s on them to avert a full or partial government shutdown that no one wants or needs. Schumer and McConnell, while far apart ideologically, are aligned here. They both want to keep the government open, and nearly five months into FY 2024, they want to bring this glacially slow spending fight to a close. On the Senate floor, McConnell said Hill leaders need to “row in the same direction — toward clean appropriations and away from poison pills.”
President Joe Biden invited the “Big Four” leaders — House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — to the White House on Tuesday morning to discuss the standoff over the annual spending bills. Without a resolution or another short-term stopgap, a partial government shutdown will begin this weekend. Embarrassed by their lack of accomplishments, MAGA House Republicans see the must-pass spending bills as their best chance to pass harmful policies that could not become law on their own merits. They’ve added more than 560 partisan poison pills to their draft spending bills, and according to multiple press reports, the fight has come down to whether or not to include these measures.
Today, Representatives Deborah Ross (NC-02), Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), Doris Matsui (CA-07), Terri Sewell (AL-07), and Ruben Gallego (AZ-03) led a letter with 9 high-ranking House Democrats to House and Senate leadership reiterating their call to advance responsible appropriations legislation free of poison pill provisions and adequately fund non-defense discretionary programs at the caps agreed to by Speaker Johnson and Leader Schumer in the revised budget deal. The letter follows House Republicans’ repeated efforts to hijack the appropriations process in attempts to enact harmful, extreme policies, including this week when the House Freedom Caucus demanded that House leadership include contentious policy riders in appropriations legislation. Proposed riders would defund Planned Parenthood, block efforts to reduce gun violence, enable discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals, and more.
Leaders from the Clean Budget Coalition spoke about the danger of poison pill riders and the need to pass a clean federal budget.
In this pivotal moment in the appropriations process, we again ask that you prioritize both appropriate funding levels and keeping all new poison pill policy riders out of the bills. And while our coalition thoroughly appreciates the many Members of Congress who have pushed and fought for a clean FY24 budget thus far, it’s especially important to maintain solidarity in the face of an unfortunate reality: once a poison pill rider is included in an iteration of the appropriations package, it becomes almost impossible to remove it from future packages. Neither legacy riders nor new poison pills represent the will of the American people, but instead harmful special interest groups that wish to circumvent the legislative process through this misguided budgetary practice.
House Republican appropriators reportedly told hardliners in their conference on Wednesday that “they have no chance of exacting the kinds of ‘poison pill’ riders that the House approved in GOP-only spending bills,” and urged conservatives to “drop their focus on other poison-pill amendments.” Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of Public Citizen and co-chair of the Clean Budget Coalition, released the following statement: “Republican appropriators were right to school their caucus in this manner. All harmful poison pills must be dropped."
This was a long meeting with spats of yelling. But the basic gist is this — appropriators effectively told the hardline conservatives that they have no chance of exacting the kinds of “poison pill” riders that the House approved in GOP-only spending bills. The cardinals argued that a government shutdown was idiotic and would only hurt House Republicans. Republican leaders and appropriators have urged conservatives to focus on one or two achievable goals — something modest on border security, for example — and to drop their focus on other poison-pill amendments. House and Senate appropriators have been negotiating daily on the bills, lawmakers and aides said.
“The big stumbling block will be if they’re insisting — which they shouldn’t — on the riders, which are unacceptable,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), her party’s top appropriator in the House, said during a brief interview on Wednesday. “We’re working. We’re working hard,” she added. With the second half of current funding set to expire on March 8, there’s almost no political will on the Hill to delay again.
The Democratic-controlled Senate largely wrote its spending bills to adhere to Biden and McCarthy’s deal. The Republican-run House wrote its bills planning for steep funding cuts, and the House also included dozens of contentious policy provisions — called “riders” because they ride along in often unrelated legislation. House Republicans pursued non-spending-related policy riders to prevent federal agencies from implementing Biden administration climate change rules, policies that conservatives say over-regulate the energy and manufacturing industries, and to prohibit any federal resources from going to Planned Parenthood and other health care providers who perform abortion procedures. The House GOP also pursued legislation to stop U.S. embassies from flying LGBTQ pride flags and to ban drag performers on military bases.
The Human Rights Campaign, the ACLU, and 63 other organizations from across the country this week issued a joint letter calling on Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to continue to rally their pro-equality memberships in opposition to a slate of anti-LGBTQ+ riders that have been attached to annual appropriations bills. These riders, advanced by the anti-equality majority in the House of Representatives and supported by Speaker Mike Johnson, would impose a flood of harsh new forms of discrimination on the LGBTQ+ community, further pushing into the margins an already marginalized – but growing – portion of the populace purely on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
The League of Conservation Voters and Natural Resources Defense Council led more than 100 groups in sending the below letter to congressional leaders and Members of Congress urging them to reject the inclusion of all anti-environmental poison pill policy riders in FY24 appropriations bills.
The well-being of the country is at stake. We call on Congress to do their job and pass a clean budget without the over 500 proposed poison pill policy riders and to not use the immigrant community as bargaining chips for extremist political agendas. Anything less is a complete sabotage of the very agencies meant to ensure a healthy future for all Americans.
Today, U.S. Congressman Sean Casten (IL-06), Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Congressman Juan Vargas (CA-52) led 62 of their colleagues in a letter to the House and Senate appropriations leadership opposing several anti-ESG riders spread across the FY 2024 appropriations bills. “These appropriations riders follow a dangerous trend of political interference with investing choices at the state level that are antithetical to the free-market system that has made US markets the envy of the world,” the lawmakers wrote. “To protect the annual appropriations process from extremist culture wars that cost our constituents their hard-earned savings and safeguard our free markets, we urge you to finalize FY 2024 appropriations bills without these dangerous political riders.”
Congress is up against a deadline of Jan. 19 to avoid a partial government shutdown. Failure to reach an agreement would mean potential cuts to many federal programs that everyday Americans rely on. A shutdown would also create fear and uncertainty for many AFSCME members who work for Uncle Sam or whose jobs depend on federal funding. Reese joined several members of Congress and community allies on Thursday in calling on extremist lawmakers to “pass a clean budget.” That means a budget without the “poison pill riders” that right-wing extremists have attempted to insert to attack women’s rights, transgender rights, the environment and more. Such provisions are misaligned with the values of most Americans and would otherwise stand no chance of becoming law. Reese joined Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Rep. Deborah Ross (D-N.C.) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) in calling for a clean budget. Community allies included Public Citizen, the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA), Reproductive Freedom for All, and more.
To avoid a costly and disruptive shutdown or another stopgap funding bill, there isn’t enough time left for House Republicans to pass party-line bills without Democratic support. Bills loaded with poison pills should not be a serious basis for final negotiations. As long as the White House, Democrats in both chambers of Congress, and Senate Republicans remain firm in their commitment to spending bills free from poison pills, that is only one path forward.
Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05) joined a press conference today with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Congresswoman Deborah Ross (NC-02), other Members of Congress, leading budget advocates, and Americans likely to be harmed by the House GOP’s proposed spending cuts and poison pill riders. Below is a transcript of his remarks.
Hardline lawmakers are proposing cuts to clean energy programs and EPA budget. This would stall climate progress at a crucial time, and we cannot afford to reverse course. That’s why Moms member Elizabeth Brandt joined partners and members of Congress on Capitol Hill on January 11, 2023, to stand up against extreme poison pill riders and funding cuts that affect people from all walks of life across our country.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Reps. Steny Hoyer, Jan Schakowsky, and Deborah Ross today joined leading budget advocates and everyday people likely to be harmed by the House GOP’s proposed spending cuts and poison pill riders for a press conference at the House Triangle. Speakers at the event denounced House Republicans’ continued efforts to push for massive cuts to critical programs and the 560+ harmful poison pill riders still present in the House GOP’s draft spending bills.
House Republicans on Tuesday reaffirmed their commitment to fight for conservative policy riders in fiscal 2024 spending bills, incensing Democratic appropriators and raising the specter of yet another funding stopgap — or a partial shutdown. With a top-line spending deal in hand, House and Senate leaders are now scrambling to outline funding totals for each of the 12 appropriations bills and pass the first four before Jan. 19. After that date, certain agencies — including the departments of Energy and Agriculture — would run out of money. Lawmakers say it’s not enough time, and Speaker Mike Johnson’s pledge to try to inject conservative policies into those bills could plunge the already messy appropriations process into further disarray.
