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Republicans broach a longer stopgap bill as shutdown enters fourth week

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When House Republicans first passed a stopgap spending bill last month, it was written to give Congress a seven-week window to come to a long-term deal on government funding.

With the government shutdown now running into a fourth week, that original Nov. 21 deadline is looming fast — and numerous Republicans acknowledged Monday a new, longer stopgap bill will be needed.

What they don’t yet agree on is how much more time to give themselves to score a more enduring deal given that negotiations with Democrats to end the shutdown are virtually nonexistent.

GOP leaders are discussing dates ranging from mid-December to deep into 2026, and — in hopes of bringing Democrats aboard a shutdown-ending stopgap — they have offered to hold a separate vote on extending key health insurance subsidies alongside it.

But reopening the timing debate is risky and divisive inside the GOP. Leaders face a similar dilemma as they did before the shutdown began: Appropriators generally want a shorter stopgap, allowing them to write bipartisan bills, while conservative hard-liners want a longer continuing resolution running until March or even to the beginning of the next fiscal year, according to three Republicans granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune raised the possibility Monday that lawmakers would need “something much longer term” into 2026 if the current stalemate continues.

“I’m for doing the appropriations process, but, you know, at some point [Democrats] may not leave any alternatives,” Thune said when asked if he would support a CR until next Oct. 1.

Going that far into next year would spark pushback from members of the Appropriations Committee, who want to lock in a fiscal 2026 funding deal as soon as possible. The deeper Congress goes into the fiscal year, they worry, the less appetite there will be for reaching an agreement that doesn’t just extend funding levels set more than 18 months ago.

“We’re probably going to have to extend the CR date because the Democrats have held us up for weeks now,” Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters Monday. “Having said that I don’t want to go into next year and I am adamantly opposed to having a long-term CR.”

The backdrop of the timing debate is a bipartisan negotiation process that has almost completely broken down, if it ever really started in the first place. Thune and other senators acknowledged one-off conversations here and there in interviews Monday, but the group of rank-and-file senators who gathered early in the shutdown to try and forge a deal have made no significant progress.

“They’re not really happening,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said on Monday of the bipartisan talks, adding that the two sides were at an “impasse.”

Getting Democrats to agree to a longer CR is far from a sure thing. They’re almost certain to balk at the idea of going into next year without an agreement on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year.

While Senate Republicans are willing to give Democrats a vote on extending those subsidies immediately after they vote to reopen the government, Democrats have been holding out for firmer guarantees that an extension can pass the House and get signed into law by President Donald Trump.

Private Senate GOP discussions about changing the expiration date for a stopgap spilled into public view when Mullin suggested more than a week ago that Republicans needed to start thinking about a longer window, potentially to Dec. 18 or 19. House GOP hard-liners argued strongly against that December timeline in conversations with senior Republicans, according to two other people granted anonymity to describe private talks.

But with the clock ticking, Mullin opened the door Monday to a 2026 expiration date given the current shutdown stalemate.

The idea of going deeper into the year — or potentially next year — has gained traction with a growing number of Republicans who acknowledge that they will need more than just a month to negotiate a sweeping deal that would set new funding levels, and new policy priorities, for the rest of the fiscal year.

“The 11/21 extension is no longer tenable & should be extended much further out,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), a close Trump ally, tweeted Monday.

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Congress

Johnson touts ‘bipartisan’ path for FISA reauthorization, but obstacles remain

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Speaker Mike Johnson is raising the possibility of a “bipartisan” path forward on extending a key spy authority after negotiations among House Republicans blew up late last week.

“We’re confident that we’ll be able to find strong bipartisan consensus that builds off of the really meaningful reforms that we included in the legislation the last time we reauthorized it,” Johnson said during a news conference Tuesday morning.

The emergency short-term reauthorization Congress cleared last week expires April 30, putting pressure on lawmakers to reach a deal quickly.

Among the options GOP leaders are discussing: If the Senate can advance a three-year extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, with policy changes, the House could then pass it with a majority of Republicans and some Democrats, according to three people granted anonymity to share direct knowledge of ongoing conversations.

It’s also possible Johnson could put that measure on the House floor under an expedited procedure that does not require prior adoption of a party-line rule, but would need a two-thirds majority voting in the affirmative to secure passage. House GOP leaders still need to appease hard-liners who have very specific demands for new guardrails on warrentless surveillance practices as part of any reauthorization measure.

House Democratic leaders, meanwhile, aren’t promising cooperation — and they’re skeptical Johnson is as close to a deal as he might suggest.

“His confidence meter was always pretty high, and then he put a bill on the floor that had zero consensus among his caucus, and looked like the disaster that it was after midnight,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California told reporters Tuesday.

He added that he has not had “any discussions” yet with Republican counterparts on next steps for Section 702, and “absent those conversations, it’s going to be hard to find bipartisan consensus.” Aguilar also said that Democrats would follow the leads of House Intelligence Chair Jim Himes of Connecticut and Jamie Raskin of Maryland.

Johnson is planning to meet Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Darin LaHood of Illinois later Tuesday as the pair of Republicans works with Democrats on a bipartisan FISA extension plan, according to two people granted anonymity to share private scheduling.

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Graham releases blueprint for GOP immigration enforcement funding plan

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Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham unveiled a fiscal blueprint Tuesday paving the way for the GOP’s party-line immigration enforcement plan.

The budget resolution is the first step in Republicans’ two-step plan to deliver a bill funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol and other agencies to President Donald Trump’s desk by his self-imposed June 1 deadline.

Senate Republicans are aiming to adopt the budget resolution this week. Senate Majority Leader John Thune can lose as many as three GOP members so long as Vice President JD Vance is available to break ties.

“Republicans are doing something that must be done quickly, and that our Democrat colleagues are trying to prevent us from doing. That something is simple: fully fund Border Patrol and ICE at a time of great threat to the United States,” Graham (R-S.C.) said in a statement.

The budget resolution tasks the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee with drafting the subsequent immigration enforcement bill.

The resolution gives the committees until May 15 to hand over text. It sets a ceiling of $70 billion for the Judiciary Committee’s portion and $70 billion for the Homeland Security panel’s portion. While the language would allow for a larger bill, a Graham aide said Tuesday that Republicans are aiming to keep the measure to about $70 billion.

Senate Republicans are expected to take an initial vote on the budget resolution as soon as Tuesday afternoon. After that they’ll need to complete a marathon session known as a vote-a-rama before they can approve the fiscal blueprint and send it to the House.

Democrats are expected to force several amendments related to cost-of-living concerns. Senate conservatives could also try to expand the scope of the bill, though GOP leaders hope to avoid making any changes to Graham’s text.

House Republicans could take their own vote next week. They are also waiting to grant approval of a Senate-passed deal to fund the rest of the Department of Homeland Security. Speaker Mike Johnson has delayed action on the measure amid hard-right demands that the Senate move on the immigration enforcement funding bill first.

Some House conservatives want the Senate to complete the entire reconciliation process, which allows ICE funding to bypass a Democratic filibuster, before they take up the larger DHS deal. That could drag the agency’s shutdown deep into May.

Senate Republicans are aiming to put the final immigration enforcement bill on the floor the week of May 11.

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‘Many families are struggling’

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Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan offered a rare acknowledgment from a GOP leader Tuesday that the U.S. economy might not be in tip-top condition. McClain, the Republican Conference chair, said at a news conference that “even with bigger [tax] refunds, many families are struggling right now, and I get it.”

That’s a departure from the message President Donald Trump sent at a event in Las Vegas last week, where he said “everything’s doing really well” and played down the impact of higher energy prices since he ordered military strikes on Iran.

“But we also owe it to the American people to be honest about how we got here, to make sure we don’t ever go back again,” McClain, the No. 4 party leader added, saying Americans are “digging out of a hole” from former President Joe Biden’s administration.

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