(Photo courtesy of New Santa Ana) “United States Capital Building in Washington, DC.”
Eric Schultz
Connector Contributor
As has happened several times in the past, the United States federal government is close to a government shutdown. This shutdown is set to happen on September 30 if the yearly federal budget cannot be passed, which sets spending levels for the following fiscal year in various sectors of the United States government. Alternatively, the federal government can also pass a continuing resolution, which would temporarily extend previous fiscal year’s spending amounts and prolong the shutdown. Usually, government shutdowns are a result of split-party control among the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Presidency. Ironically, this shutdown will instead be a result of inter-party conflict that has existed for several months.
To understand the current government shutdown, it’s important to understand Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and his critics. Since taking control of the House of Representatives in last year’s midterm elections with a four-vote majority, the House Republicans’ tenure has been defined by its’ division and dysfunction. It took McCarthy fifteen ballots to be elected Speaker, the first time the Speaker election took more than one ballot in a century, due to members of the House Freedom Caucus and their issues with McCarthy. The House Freedom Caucus is a far-right voting bloc that demanded several concessions from McCarthy, with the most notable being the one-member threshold to file a motion to vacate the speakership.
All of this is important because this government shutdown stems from some hardliners in the House Freedom Caucus, requiring any spending plan passed to meet their budgetary demands. If passed into law, the federal budget would see significant spending cuts across many sectors of government, increased border funding, and an end of new aid to Ukraine. Although there have always been fringe members of political parties, the House Freedom Caucus members are in a rare situation of having the political bandwidth to make these demands. UMass Lowell Associate Professor of Political Science Professor Cluverius summed it up best, saying, “Political scientists tend not to think about personality politics very much, but this is one of the cases where the people negotiating the resolution matters, what they want matters, and the pressure they feel now matters.” With a group making constant shifting demands of their own party, nothing substantial can get done in the House.
Meanwhile, an entirely different narrative is unfolding in the Senate. There appears to be talk of a continuing resolution with bipartisan support, and the disputes over which funds go where appear to be going much more smoothly than in the lower chamber. There seems to be some general agreement that the government should not shutdown, even if it is too late to avoid, and this has created a more cooperative legislative foundation than ideological demands have in the House. However, this will not ultimately change the looming government shutdown. The Senate either must pass the House’s continuing resolution or send something for the House to pass, and none of these outcomes seem particularly likely. It is certain that the Democratic-controlled Senate will not pass a continuing resolution tailor-made for the House Freedom Caucus’ hardliners, nor would they pass the Senate’s.
President Joe Biden has been mostly quiet over the House GOP’s infighting. McCarthy and Biden had previously come to a spending agreement earlier this year, but the President has since turned his back on the deal in an attempt to satisfy his own party’s hardliners. Satisfying them also renders bipartisanship impossible because the hardliners have warned that they will file a motion to vacate if he passes anything with the help of House Democrats. Lastly, it is important to remember that despite progress on it halting, moderate Republicans could join forces with Democrats to pass a discharge petition, which could be voted on through bypassing the Speaker.
This impending government shutdown has baffled everyone watching closely, precisely because of the demands, or lack thereof, of these hardliners. Other House Republicans have been publicly expressing their anger over the behavior of their co-partisans. Professor Cluverius does not know what will happen next, saying, “I have no idea. I think the holdouts may cave eventually… I think they just aren’t quite sure whether or not the shutdown is going to hurt them politically because they sort of think they can shut down the government and they will be fine.” Until the House Freedom Caucus hardliners agree to a deal, McCarthy risks losing his speakership or until moderate Republicans work with Democrats, the United States Government is frozen in place.
(Editors note: this article was written prior to government shutdown being averted on September 30, 2023)
