Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters Sunday that there was a “very good chance” the government would not shut down at the end of the month.
“Now we have good news: There is a good chance we can avoid a government shutdown with all the pain that would cause in New York and America this week,” Schumer said.
Congress has just over a week to pass a short-term funding bill, also known as a continuing resolution or CR, to avoid a government shutdown at 12:01 a.m. on October 1.
Last week, House Republicans rejected their own plan to avoid a shutdown, dealing an embarrassing blow to House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, and jeopardizing efforts to fund the government for six months.
Discussions about maintaining the government in place are particularly tense today, less than 50 days before the presidential election.
On Sunday, Schumer said he was “getting closer” to a deal with Johnson.
“I’m prepared to sit down, and I’ve been sitting down for four days with President Johnson, his staff and my staff, and we’re getting closer to an agreement,” Schumer told reporters.
“We can do it, but we can’t accept any delay,” he said, adding: “We can’t have people on either side, Democrats or Republicans, stand up and say, ‘If I don’t get what I want, I’m going to shut down the government.’ We can’t have that. The consequences for the American people would be too dire.”
Johnson is expected to unveil and vote on a short-term bill to fund the government this week.
Schumer’s comments come after he called Johnson’s previous strategy of passing both a CR and a bill called the SAVE Act “unworkable” and encouraged him to abandon it in a speech Tuesday.
The House speaker has struggled to bring his group to a consensus on a spending plan in recent weeks, particularly after former President Donald Trump urged Republicans to shut down the government if they can’t tie a bill to the SAVE Act, a voting and elections bill.
“If Republicans in the House and Senate do not get absolute assurances that the election is secure, THEY SHOULD NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, MOVE FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING BUDGET RESOLUTION. … SHUT IT DOWN!!!,” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social, earlier this month.
Last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, lambasted the idea of shutting down the government, especially so close to the election.
“It would be politically stupid for us to do this right before the election, because we are certainly being held accountable,” McConnell said, adding: “We’ve been through this before. I support anything that avoids a government shutdown, and that will obviously end up being a discussion between the Democratic leader and the speaker of the House about how to avoid a government shutdown.”
Kyle Stewart, Scott Wong And Brennan Leach contributed.
