White House orders commencement of government shutdown procedures. Read it here.
Statement from Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the Senate Budget Committee chair, who has been at the center of the stalled budget negotiations all year:
After blocking Senate Democrats’ attempts to start a budget conference 18 times over the past six months, Republicans are now scrambling to start a conference committee with mere minutes to go before a government shutdown. This is just the latest absurd and desperate attempt by Speaker Boehner to delay the inevitable–bringing a clean continuing resolution to the floor for Democrats and Republicans to vote on–and to continue pushing the country toward a completely unnecessary government shutdown. If Republicans were truly serious about avoiding a crisis they would pass the Senate’s short-term funding bill to remove the threat of a government shutdown immediately. We won’t negotiate while Republicans are threatening families and the economy with a crisis.
Harry Reid rejects Boehner gambit: “We will not go to conference with a gun to our head.”
In a last minute pivot, Speaker Boehner is now seeking a conference committee to resolve the differences between the House and Senate — rather than sending a clean CR, or any other CR — to the Senate. This means a government shutdown will probably begin at midnight ET anyway.
For those who have been following the budget process in Congress closely, there’s a lot of chutzpah in this move, since Republicans have for months been resisting a conference committee to resolve the budget impasse. Conservatives in particular have fiercely opposed a conference committee resolution to these matters because they see it as guaranteed to lead to a compromise. Anathema.
Still not clear how this latest move will play out. Awaiting reaction from Senate Democrats, who will undoubtedly find no good faith at all in this last-minute gambit.
The Senate rejected the latest House anti-Obamacare cum temporary government funding bill on a 54-46 vote. Tired of this yet?
The House just passed a third anti-Obamacare temporary spending bill. A few Dems defected this time, but they were not the deciding votes. The Senate is expected to table this latest version shortly, probably within an hour.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), who just hours ago was castigating his colleagues as “lemmings” for shutting down the government over Obamacare, has now decided he’s going to go lemming and vote with Boehner after all.
I’m tempted to make an old Mel Brooks joke from History of the World. “Revolting? No, kidding. They stink on ice!” But more seriously. Pete King says he has 25 GOP House moderates who are going to vote ‘no’ on the Boehner/Tea Party defund Obamacare plan. Even he says he can’t be certain whether the 25 won’t buckle when the full pressure comes to bear. But it’s potentially a stunning and for Boehner devastating turn of events. If you really got 25 GOP ‘no’ votes and the Dems stayed united, which seems highly likely, the bill would go down to defeat.
Speaker Boehner’s office just released (a bit after 4 PM) a statement, probably the last before the shutdown kicks in, making what amounts to their final argument for shutting down the government.
“We’ve spent the last hour and a half meeting with our Members. And it’s pretty clear that what our Members want is fairness for the American people. The president provided a one year delay of the employer mandate. He’s provided exceptions for unions and others. There’s even exceptions for Members of Congress. We believe that everyone should be treated fairly. So we’re going to move here in the next several hours to take the Senate bill, add to it a one year delay of the individual mandate on the American people. And get rid of the exemption for Members of Congress. It’s a matter of fairness for all Americans.”