As Shutdown Clock Ticks, Parties Trade Barbs Over Omnibus

Nine days from a gov­ern­ment shut­down, Re­pub­lic­ans and Demo­crats are trad­ing ac­cus­a­tions faster than le­gis­lat­ive of­fers, as ne­go­ti­at­ors hope to get talks back on track to pass a massive om­ni­bus ap­pro­pri­ations spend­ing bill and fund the gov­ern­ment past Dec. 11.

House Ap­pro­pri­ations Com­mit­tee Chair­man Har­old Ro­gers sug­ges­ted that Demo­crats are slow-walk­ing the pro­cess and noted that as of Wed­nes­day even­ing, he has not heard back from his coun­ter­parts after send­ing them an ini­tial of­fer Tues­day even­ing.

“The ball is in their court. We sent them last night a glob­al bill and we’ve not heard any­thing back,” Ro­gers said. “When we ne­go­ti­ate in good faith, we can get things done, and I’ve not seen that yet.”

Demo­crats, however, said the GOP of­fer was any­thing but a good-faith ef­fort. Demo­crats de­cried riders deal­ing with Wall Street, en­vir­on­ment­al reg­u­la­tions, and Syr­i­an refugees.

Rep. Nita Lowey, the rank­ing mem­ber on the Ap­pro­pri­ations Com­mit­tee and a key Demo­crat­ic ne­go­ti­at­or, said she had ini­tially been op­tim­ist­ic about the talks but was dis­mayed by the ini­tial GOP pro­pos­al. “Their of­fer wasn’t real,” she said. “We couldn’t ac­cept it. They know we couldn’t ac­cept it.”

Demo­crats are work­ing on a blue­print of their own that they planned to re­lease as soon as Wed­nes­day even­ing, she ad­ded. “We are present­ing a coun­ter­of­fer that we think is real, and if they don’t want to shut down the gov­ern­ment, and if they do want to get our sup­port, then they will sit down and work on a fi­nal pro­pos­al, and I hope that time will come be­fore Dec. 11.”

Part of the is­sue hold­ing up the pro­cess is that House Minor­ity Lead­er Nancy Pelosi is fa­cing pres­sure from her mem­bers not to give too much. Pro­gress­ives were en­cour­aged by Pelosi’s pub­lic re­jec­tion of the GOP plan, be­liev­ing that it’s a sign she’s taken to heart their con­cerns that Demo­crat­ic de­fect­ors have en­abled Re­pub­lic­ans to pass harm­ful riders in past ne­go­ti­ations that have slowly chipped away at some of their pri­or­it­ies, par­tic­u­larly in the fin­an­cial and en­vir­on­ment­al sec­tors.

“It’s a creep­ing strategy, and it’s an ef­fect­ive one that the Re­pub­lic­ans have used,” said Rep. Raul Gri­jalva, co­chair of the Con­gres­sion­al Pro­gress­ive Caucus. “Look, we just can’t as a caucus con­tin­ue to say, ‘vote your own con­science’, be­cause it’s get­ting to the point where we’re in a corner.”

Re­pub­lic­ans, however, see it dif­fer­ently. To them, rais­ing the over­all fund­ing levels that had been capped by se­quest­ra­tion was already a move to­ward Demo­crats. Now, in­stead of passing a con­tinu­ing res­ol­u­tion at those se­quest­ra­tion levels, Re­pub­lic­ans are ask­ing for le­gis­lat­ive riders to en­tice GOP votes for a bill that es­sen­tially raises fed­er­al spend­ing.

“There’s a little bit of bluff­ing go­ing on, but there’s also an ef­fort to find what you really can’t give on and what can you really give on,” Re­pub­lic­an ap­pro­pri­at­or Tom Cole said. “From our stand­point, they’ve got­ten a vic­tory on the money side, we gave on that. Time for you to give something.”

Con­gres­sion­al ne­go­ti­at­ors are still hope­ful that text of a fi­nal om­ni­bus bill could be re­leased by Monday and the le­gis­la­tion passed by the Dec. 11 dead­line, des­pite the un­usu­al pub­lic spat over private ne­go­ti­ations. But time is run­ning short.

Re­pub­lic­ans will meet privately Thursday to dis­cuss the om­ni­bus ne­go­ti­ations. Among the out­stand­ing is­sues spur­ring in­terest on both sides is one that came to light after the IS­IS at­tacks in Par­is last month. GOP ne­go­ti­at­ors in­cluded in their ini­tial of­fer a meas­ure to tight­en the vet­ting pro­cess on Syr­i­an refugees and re­quire sign-off on each refugee by ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cials. An identic­al bill passed the House last month, but Demo­crat­ic lead­ers have de­cried it, and the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion is­sued a veto threat. Still, many Re­pub­lic­ans be­lieve that since 47 Demo­crats voted for the bill, it should be im­possible for them to call it a pois­on pill.

“I think the bill we have is reas­on­able,” Cole said. “We didn’t try to put in re­li­gious tests. We just said, ‘Tell us it’s safe.’ And if you’re not will­ing to put your fin­ger­prints on that, then we shouldn’t be let­ting some­body in.”

The GOP may be able to at­tract some cross-aisle sup­port. Rep. Ger­ald Con­nolly con­ceded that he, as well as the oth­er Demo­crats who voted for refugee le­gis­la­tion two weeks ago, would find it dif­fi­cult to make that a reas­on to vote against the om­ni­bus.

But be­hind the scenes, Re­pub­lic­an mem­bers and aides are en­ter­tain­ing the pos­sib­il­ity that the fi­nal le­gis­la­tion could pass without the refugee meas­ure. Mem­bers and staff have in­stead been set­ting their sights on tight­en­ing bor­der con­trols on those trav­el­ing from visa-waiver coun­tries—either in the om­ni­bus or as a stand-alone bill as soon as next week.

The same may end up be­ing true for meas­ures sought by Re­pub­lic­ans to re­strict fund­ing for Planned Par­ent­hood. Some Re­pub­lic­ans had been push­ing lead­ers to in­clude a meas­ure that would al­low states to send money ap­pro­pri­ated for Planned Par­ent­hood to oth­er com­munity health clin­ics. But Planned Par­ent­hood was left out of Re­pub­lic­ans’ first of­fer.

That could irk some con­ser­vat­ives who only months ago pushed lead­ers to try to strip fed­er­al fund­ing from the or­gan­iz­a­tion, but it does make clear that House Re­pub­lic­an lead­ers do not ex­pect to pass a bill with only GOP votes. That comes des­pite as­ser­tions from House con­ser­vat­ives that they could be per­suaded to sup­port an om­ni­bus if cer­tain riders are in­cluded.

“The ques­tion is this, what would it take to get to yes?” House Free­dom Caucus mem­ber Mick Mul­vaney said. “There are some of us who voted against Ry­an-Mur­ray three years ago, but for the om­ni­bus that grew out of Ry­an-Mur­ray be­cause of the riders.”

But Re­pub­lic­an lead­ers re­cog­nize that the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion has singled out the Planned Par­ent­hood riders as ob­jec­tion­able sev­er­al times, and would be un­likely to sign a bill tar­get­ing the agency. Re­pub­lic­ans have oth­er av­en­ues to ad­dress the is­sue, with the House re­cently em­pan­el­ing a spe­cial com­mit­tee to in­vest­ig­ate Planned Par­ent­hood and the Sen­ate tar­get­ing the or­gan­iz­a­tion in its re­con­cili­ation pack­age that will also seek to re­peal Obama­care.

Mean­while, the bill con­tin­ues a long­stand­ing an­ti­abor­tion rider that re­stricts the use of some fed­er­al fund­ing for the pro­ced­ure, bar­ring cases of in­cest and rape or if the life of the moth­er is in jeop­ardy. Re­pub­lic­an Study Com­mit­tee Chair­man Bill Flores said that should be enough for many Re­pub­lic­ans.

“There are oth­er pro-life pro­vi­sions that are OK,” Flores said. “We’re about pro­tect­ing life. It doesn’t have to say ‘Planned Par­ent­hood’ on it; so as long as we have pro-life pro­vi­sions, we’re fine.”

Alex Brown contributed to this article.