House Democrats are digging in against the Republicans’ plan to fund the government at current levels through September, setting up a clash with GOP leaders and heightening the odds of a shutdown in the middle of next month.
The push to move a one-year continuing resolution (CR) has taken off since Thursday, when President Trump threw his weight behind a “clean” CR, which would extend 2024 funding levels through the remainder of fiscal 2025. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) backed the plan over the weekend, vowing to finalize a bill before next week, and even some members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus appear open to supporting it.
The GOP’s strategy has shifted the focus of the debate back to the Democratic side, where a number of lawmakers — including the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee — have already rejected the idea out of hand.
“A one-year CR is a nonstarter,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) told reporters Tuesday in the Capitol. She’s holding out hope that months of negotiations will result in a bipartisan deal on 2025 spending.
Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, also said Tuesday on the Senate floor she is “ready to pass a short-term CR immediately to take down the risk of a shutdown so that we can finish our negotiations and write full-year spending bills.”
The issue presents a dilemma for Democratic leaders, who are fighting to curb the significant federal spending cuts being pursued by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
By sidestepping a push by hard-line conservatives to include DOGE cuts as part of the CR, GOP leadership is all but daring Democrats to oppose it — at risk of being blamed for a shutdown.
Yet many Democrats are pressing leadership to withhold support for any spending plan that doesn’t take steps to ensure the allocated funds go where Congress intended — a response to Trump’s efforts to gut federal programs Congress had previously funded.
“There will have to be some type of guarantees, because we’re very unsure about whether things that we’ve already approved are actually going to be expended,” Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) said.
That demand has been rejected by Trump’s Republican allies, setting the sides on a collision course over what language makes it into the final bill — and raising questions about where Democrats hope to use their leverage to win concessions.
“We just want to see Republicans obey the law,” Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) said. “That’s the red line for me.”
But Takano also wondered aloud if Democrats need to demand explicit assurances in the bill.
“The enforcement is the courts,” he said. “The enforcement is not the CR.”
At the same time, Democrats are already pointing fingers at Republicans in the event of a funding lapse, saying the onus is on the majority party to keep the government funded, while accusing their colleagues across the aisle of abandoning bipartisan funding talks.
“House Republicans are marching the country towards a government shutdown that was started by Elon Musk,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters on Tuesday.
“Rosa DeLauro is still at the table. We need House Republicans to join her.”
But negotiators on both sides have struggled for weeks to strike a larger funding deal amid a fierce, partisan debate over Trump’s authority to withhold dollars already directed by Congress and lay off thousands of federal workers as part of a sweeping operation to reshape the government.
As some of the recent orders by Trump have seen challenges in the court, Democrats have ramped up calls in the past month for assurances from their Republican colleagues that any funding compromise reached be carried out as Congress intended. But Republicans have drawn red lines against what they’ve panned as “poison pills,” as Democrats have sought to include language in funding legislation to curb DOGE’s efforts.
“They haven’t given up any of their positions,” House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters Tuesday, while also rejecting claims by Democrats that Republicans walked away from the bargaining table.
“From our standpoint, the only choice is to get this done so we don’t have a shutdown,” Cole said, while accusing Democrats of wanting to “restrict presidential authority.”
“They might be in a position to do that if they control even one chamber, but they don’t,” he said. “So, do you really think a Republican House and a Republican Senate is going to send language that limits a Republican president, by the way, his name is Donald Trump, and expect him to sign it?”
Republicans are hoping to unveil the text of their funding stopgap plan by the end of the week to provide members with several days to review the text before an eventual vote.
Heading into the fight, some Democrats are already warning that they won’t support in any form. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said it makes no sense for Republicans to claim billions of dollars of waste and abuse across federal agencies, and then back a CR that funds that same waste and abuse.
“I’m not voting for a CR of any length,” Moskowitz said.
Cole said Tuesday he doesn’t “expect any” Democratic support for the coming stopgap, but he acknowledged the vote could be a tough one for some moderate Democrats.
“I will tell you I think the 13 [House] Democrats sitting in Trump seats ought to think twice about shutting down Trump’s government, but that’s up to them again,” he said.
Asked Tuesday if he’d back a full-year stopgap if the GOP plan reaches the Senate, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), whose state went for Trump last year, didn’t say no. “What I will never support is voting or withholding my vote to shut the government down.”
“I will never vote or withhold that support because we must never shut down our government. That’s one of our core responsibilities, and I will never vote for chaos,” Fetterman said.
