McCarthy’s Temporary Spending Bill Fails to Pass the House

WASHINGTON — Hard-line conservatives on Friday tanked House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s long-shot bid to pass legislation to avert a government shutdown, in an extraordinary display of defiance that made it all but certain that Congress would miss a midnight deadline Saturday to keep federal funding flowing.

It appeared clear even before the vote that the stopgap bill was bound to fail, as several hard-right Republicans had declared that they would not back a temporary spending bill under any circumstances. McCarthy, bracing for political blowback for a government closure, had scheduled it anyway in hopes of showing he was trying to avoid the crisis.

But the decision by right-wing lawmakers to effectively blow up one final effort by McCarthy to give the appearance of trying to head off a shutdown dealt the speaker a stinging defeat, and left politically vulnerable Republicans fuming. And the size of the group of defectors was striking, reflecting both McCarthy’s weak hold on his conference and the influence of the far right in the House.

The bill failed by a vote of 198-232, with 21 Republicans joining all Democrats to defeat it.

The measure, which would have kept government funding flowing at vastly reduced levels — cutting spending to most domestic programs by nearly 30% — and impose stringent immigration restrictions demanded by conservatives, would not have prevented a shutdown even if it had passed the House, because it was considered dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Here’s what else to know:

— McCarthy’s allies have defended his strategy as a way to show the public that he tried to keep the government open, but was foiled by a handful of his far-right members. But the defeat on the House floor was a devastating blow for McCarthy, whose job is on the line and who has been unable to corral his tiny majority to agree on a measure to head off a meltdown.

— The Republican plan that was blocked Friday would have kept the government open for 30 days and impose drastic cuts across the board to government programs, except for funding for veterans, homeland security and disaster response. It does not include any military or humanitarian aid for Ukraine, and it would direct the homeland security secretary to resume “all activities related to the construction of the border wall” at the southern border that were in place under former President Donald Trump.

— The defeat left the House in an exceedingly weak position to negotiate with the Senate, which is moving ahead with its own, bipartisan short-term funding plan. That bill would continue spending at current levels for six weeks and provide $6 billion in aid to Ukraine and $6 billion for natural disaster relief at home.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/29/us/politics/shutdown-mccarthy.html">The New York Times</a>.