Congress
House eyes Friday vote on stopgap as partisan tensions flare
Republican leaders vowed Wednesday to barrel forward with a stopgap funding bill in the coming days as Democrats threatened to oppose it in favor of their own alternative — raising the chances for an Oct. 1 government shutdown.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters Wednesday morning that a vote on the GOP-written bill unveiled Tuesday is expected “likely Friday” amid Democratic objections about a lack of bipartisan negotiations.
“We’re going to do our job, and that’s all we can do, is do our job,” he said. “If Democrats want to shut the government down and continue to hold America hostage because they don’t like the results of the election, the American people are fed up with that kind of childish politics.”
While House GOP leaders have pushed their members for earlier action, they believe Friday morning is the likeliest option for the vote. Hard-liners and others are pushing leaders to stick to the chamber’s 72-hour-review rule.
GOP leaders are also still working to win the votes of several undecided Republicans, including Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), but are confident they are on track to pass the measure by the end of the week. “Like any big vote, they’re always tight,” Scalise said Wednesday.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, said in a brief interview he was expecting a “Friday morning” vote, saying that was “close enough” to fulfilling the 72-hour rule. GOP leaders have privately acknowledged a Thursday vote could cost them votes among hard-liners, and they can’t afford to lose many Republicans with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) already a hard “no.”
“I suspect leadership knows it’s easier to get guys to a yes when we’re following the rules than not,” said another Republican involved in the conversations granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Senate Republicans, who want to act quickly on the House bill, are closely watching the House action as they plan their own schedule.
If the House votes Friday, the earliest the Senate would be able to vote is Monday. While voting on Thursday could theoretically move up that schedule a day, a number of Republican senators want to attend activist Charlie Kirk’s funeral Sunday, making a vote that day unlikely.
Furthermore, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss chamber scheduling, senators are not eager to return Monday only to leave again for an already scheduled recess for Rosh Hashanah. Instead, senators would likely return next Thursday, after the Jewish holiday, the people said.
The scheduling conflicts come as the Sept. 30 funding expiration looms and as Senate Democrats threaten to use the chamber’s filibuster rule to block the GOP stopgap.
“In the Senate, it takes 60 votes,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday. “So that means Republicans will need to work with us. If they can’t even bother to have a conversation with Democrats, then it’s Republicans who the American people will know are causing a shutdown in two weeks.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune reiterated Wednesday that Republicans see nothing to negotiate on the “clean” stopgap, which would extend current funding through Nov. 21. “These guys are trying to take a hostage here,” he said.
Speaker Mike Johnson, asked about the prospect of Senate Democrats blocking the House stopgap, said in a brief interview Tuesday that he hoped that wouldn’t happen.
“There would be no reason to, because it’s clean and short term.” Asked if he would work on a backup plan in that case, he replied, “We’re going to see what happens.”
But House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole signaled some support Wednesday for Republicans working on a Plan B if Senate Democrats do block the GOP-led stopgap as they’re threatening.
“I certainly would,” Cole said in a brief interview, but he acknowledged it was “a leadership decision.”
Cole, asked if the talks could be salvaged at that point to stave off a shutdown, replied, “I don’t know.”
The comments came as tensions between normally cordial appropriators appear to be reaching a breaking point. Senate Appropriations Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on Tuesday accused Cole of having “pulled out” of bipartisan talks and “produced a one-sided CR.”
“Where are the Republican leaders?” Murray said. “If Republicans can’t even sit down with [Democratic leaders] to simply have a conversation, then they cannot govern.”
Cole retorted Wednesday that Democrats were threatening to oppose a stopgap funding bill “they asked for” and are now planning to unveil their own alternative that adds on health care provisions and other measures GOP leaders are opposing.
“We gave them the time frame and a clean bill, now they’re wanting to put other things in,” he said, adding that health care and other issues Democrats want to tackle “ought to be dealt with in separate discussions.”
Rep. Tom Kean Jr. represents New Jersey’s most competitive district this November — but nobody, even his GOP colleagues, can say where he’s been for the past month.
A scion of one of the state’s most storied political dynasties, Kean’s team says the two-term congressmember is facing unspecified health issues. The New Jersey Republican hasn’t voted since March 5 and has missed almost 50 roll call votes.
The other two Republicans in the New Jersey delegation, Reps. Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew, said they have called and texted Kean out of concern for his health. But so far, neither said they have heard from him. Van Drew said it’s been “radio silence.”
Several New York Republicans who have worked with Kean on key issues said similarly. Kean’s absence has largely fallen under the radar and GOP leaders haven’t addressed the issue to the conference, according to several Republicans.
One Republican, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), said he didn’t even realize Kean had been missing until he tried to find him on the House floor Tuesday.
“I was looking for him,” Bacon said in an interview Wednesday. “I didn’t know it was that long.”
“I know the congressman and his family appreciate all of the well wishes and support,” Kean consultant Harrison Neely told Blue Light News. “Please know that he will be back on a regular full schedule very soon.”
Closer to home, Kean’s allies also expect him to come back soon.
“I don’t even know the truth myself or even enough to disclose any information,” Union County GOP Chair Carlos Santos told Blue Light News. “But I have been texting with him and was told he’ll be fine and make a full recovery in the next couple weeks.”
Kean represents New Jersey’s most competitive House seat — the 7th Congressional District, a large swath across the northern and central part of the state that includes Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster. President Donald Trump narrowly carried it by one point in the 2024 presidential race, but Democratic former Rep. Mikie Sherrill carried the district by nearly two points in the 2025 governor’s race. Kean won the district by around five points in 2024.
Kean enters reelection in what could be his most challenging congressional bid to date. He faces an environment that is increasingly challenging for Republicans and the Trump administration is opening an immigration detention facility in his district while pulling funding for a major infrastructure project for New Jersey commuters — both of which have put him in a precarious position.
But Kean’s backers say his temporary absence will hardly be on voters’ minds come November.
“Everyone understands from their own family experiences that people run into unexpected health issues,” Bill Palatucci, a Republican National Committee member and attorney to the Kean campaign, told Blue Light News. “Voters will be completely sympathetic and it’s so early in the year that it will be long forgotten come the fall.”
There is a competitive Democratic primary to take on Kean, with four prominent candidates.
Democrats in the New Jersey delegation have also noticed his absence and have started to be concerned for the congressmember’s health. Those members have also not heard anything.
“It’s been a long absence,” New Jersey Democrat Rep. Rob Menendez said. “I hope he’s doing all right. But I haven’t heard anything.”
Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
The Senate will kick off a marathon amendment voting session Wednesday night as Republicans aim to adopt a budget blueprint for immigration enforcement funding.
The chamber is expected to start the vote-a-rama free-for-all around 8 p.m., according to three people granted anonymity to disclose private scheduling. Senate Republicans need to adopt the budget resolution in order to subsequently pass their bill to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the party-line budget reconciliation process.
The Senate’s top cybersecurity official is aiming to expand the number of AI licenses and approved AI tools available to Senate staff — and it will come with a price tag.
The Senate sergeant at arms, the chief law enforcement official on Capitol Hill whose office also manages IT and logistics, is seeking a $2.8 million boost for the department’s fiscal 2027 budget for AI licenses as appetite grows in Congress for using large language models in day-to-day workflow.
“About 10 percent of Senate users have already used the free, unsupported version of this technology,” Senate Sergeant at Arms Jennifer Hemingway told the Senate Appropriations Legislative Branch subcommittee Wednesday. “Moving those users and other Senate users into Senate-supported versions of these platforms is necessary to protect Senate data.”
In March, the Senate green-lighted the use of Google’s Gemini chat, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot in Senate offices with licenses that support enhanced data security measures compared with the free versions. Staff in the House have been using Copilot, Gemini and ChatGPT, as well as Anthropic’s Claude, approved platforms under the chamber’s internal AI guidelines.
The cybersecurity team in Hemingway’s office is currently conducting risk assessments on about 40 AI tools, she told lawmakers. The sergeant at arms plans to bring recommendations for AI tools for Senate use to the bipartisan AI Governance Board, and “if the AI products meet our defined criteria,” make more tools available to the Senate.
“The most popular on that list is Claude,” Hemingway noted. The sergeant at arms began assessing the Anthropic product March 3.
When pressed by ranking member Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) about the sergeant at arms’ policy of issuing one license per Senate user, Hemingway explained that the protocol is designed in part to incentivize staff to use data-protected versions approved by the sergeant at arms.
“If there is demand to have more than once license per user, we’d be happy to have conversations” with the Legislative Branch panel that funds the sergeant at arms, Hemingway said, calling it a “resource issue.”
She added that staff whose work focuses on AI and who need access to multiple tools could be accommodated very quickly.
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