{"id":18376,"date":"2026-01-29T16:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T16:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/house-infighting-will-complicate-brewing-senate-spending-deal\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T16:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T16:32:09","slug":"house-infighting-will-complicate-brewing-senate-spending-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/house-infighting-will-complicate-brewing-senate-spending-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"House infighting will complicate brewing Senate spending deal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

As White House officials and Senate Democrats scramble to nail down a last-minute deal to salvage a massive spending package, an internal GOP battle is brewing in the House over whether to accept any compromise.<\/p>\n

At stake is whether a partial government shutdown set to kick off early Saturday morning would last just a few days or much longer. The House is in recess and currently not expected to reconvene until Monday.<\/p>\n

GOP leaders expect President Donald Trump will have to lean heavily on House Republicans to get any Senate-approved agreement through the other chamber. Earlier this week, conservative hard-liners threatened to oppose<\/a> the potential plan \u2014 suggesting a shutdown could drag on for weeks if leaders aren\u2019t careful.<\/p>\n

The Senate talks have revolved around splitting off Homeland Security funding from a larger six-bill package the House sent across the Capitol last week and passing a stopgap measure to keep DHS agencies open while additional strictures on immigration enforcement are negotiated.<\/p>\n

A White House official granted anonymity to comment on the pending negotiations said Trump \u201cwants the government to remain open\u201d and confirmed the administration is \u201cworking with both parties to ensure the American people don\u2019t have to endure another shutdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Privately, some GOP hard-liners are open to the possibility of a DHS stopgap, according to three people granted anonymity to describe internal conversations, with one saying it was \u201cnot an automatic no.\u201d<\/p>\n

But their support would depend on the length of the stopgap and whether any Democratic policies are included as part of the agreement. That person added that a two-week punt negotiators are discussing would be \u201cridiculous.\u201d Ultra-conservatives would prefer one lasting six weeks or longer.<\/p>\n

Democrats want to move in the opposite direction, with Sen. Tina Smith<\/a> of Minnesota calling for a negotiation<\/a> of \u201cdays, not weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

In any scenario, GOP leaders will likely need Trump\u2019s involvement to get the DHS stopgap and the remaining five bills passed in the House and signed into law, which would keep the vast majority of federal agencies \u2014 including the Pentagon \u2014 open through Sept. 30.<\/p>\n

Speaker Mike Johnson already is dealing with a razor-thin margin, and a special election in Texas over the weekend is expected to complicate matters. If the Democratic nominee wins as expected, Johnson could spare only a single defection on a party-line vote.<\/p>\n

Another complication is that a huge swath of House Democrats would likely oppose stopgap funding for DHS, which would keep ICE and Border Patrol funded at current levels without immediate new restrictions. That could prevent GOP leaders from trying to pass the spending legislation on a bipartisan basis under suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority vote.<\/p>\n

On a caucus call Wednesday night, House Democrats aired concerns their Senate counterparts might accept a deal that does not put real guardrails on DHS agents, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the private meeting. Their leaders haven\u2019t been included in the talks with the White House so far.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a>, asked Thursday about how soon a potential agreement could get final House approval, said his \u201chope and expectation\u201d is that the other chamber will do \u201cwhat’s necessary to keep the government funded.\u201d He added that the House plan would be up to Johnson, whom he has spoken with, while acknowledging that having to abandon the six-bill package was \u201cnot ideal, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’d hoped to process all the six bills and send it to the White House, but we are where we are, and so we got to try and sort it out and get the best possible outcome given the hand we’ve been dealt,\u201d Thune added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As White House officials and Senate Democrats scramble to nail down a last-minute deal to salvage a massive spending package, an internal GOP battle is brewing in the House over whether to accept any compromise. At stake is whether a partial government shutdown set to kick off early Saturday morning would last just a few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}