Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is sending a warning to Republicans that subsequent yr’s spending payments should have Democratic buy-in, or the federal government will possible shut down.
“It’s my expectation that if Republicans try to jam a highly partisan spending bill down the throats of the American people here in the House we’ll reject it,” Jeffries mentioned Monday throughout a press briefing within the Capitol.
With President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” enacted, the Republican-led Appropriations committees in each chambers are charging forward with a slate of spending payments for fiscal yr 2026. The deadline for passing these payments is Sept. 30. A failure to take action will result in a partial authorities shutdown.
Sometimes, spending payments are bipartisan. However this yr Trump’s finances director, Russ Vought, is urging Republicans to disregard the coverage needs of Democrats and craft probably the most conservative spending payments potential, as a way to maximize the cuts to the federal authorities.
“The appropriations process has to be less bipartisan,” Vought advised reporters final week at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.
That recommendation confronts a central dilemma: Whereas Republicans have the facility to push partisan payments by way of the Home, the place laws wants solely a easy majority, they’ll have a a lot more durable time within the Senate, the place the minority Democrats have the facility of the filibuster. Meaning any spending invoice will want 60 votes to move by way of the higher chamber, necessitating the bipartisan buy-in Vought renounced.
Jeffries’s shutdown warning, subsequently, leans closely on his Democratic colleagues within the Senate holding the road in opposition to any partisan GOP payments.
“You’ve gotten Trump administration officers, just like the writer of Undertaking 2025, saying that we should always stroll away, as Republicans, from the appropriations course of, which implies they need to shut down the federal government,” he mentioned.
It’s a method that didn’t work earlier within the yr.
Dealing with an analogous shutdown deadline in March, Jeffries rallied just about his complete Home caucus in opposition to a GOP spending package deal, which Democrats loathed as a result of it slashed sure federal applications and excluded particular language requiring Trump to spend the cash as Congress supposed.
When the package deal went to the Senate, nevertheless, Minority Chief Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) opted in opposition to utilizing the filibuster to dam it, as an alternative voting with Republicans to make sure it turned legislation. The transfer infuriated Home Democrats, from management on down, who’re hoping historical past doesn’t repeat within the coming spending battle in September.
