Some progress among the House Republican’s after all?
House Republicans reported major progress charting a path forward on a partisan bill to avert a government shutdown and a Department of Defense spending bill — two measures that suffered public setbacks just a day before — after Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) hashed out a new framework for a GOP-only stopgap proposal in a House Republican conference meeting that lasted more than two hours on Wednesday.
Republicans now plan to move forward on the Pentagon appropriations bill on Thursday after two of the five members who blocked the bill on Tuesday by voting against the rule — which allows consideration of the measure — said in the meeting that they changed their position.
And McCarthy got wide approval on a new framework for a stopgap funding measure called a continuing resolution (CR) after more than a dozen Republican members had rejected a proposal developed by leaders in the Main Street Caucus and House Freedom Caucus. Conservative opposition forced leaders to pull a planned rule vote on the continuing resolution on Tuesday.
It is not clear, however, whether Republicans have the votes to move forward on the latest plan.
The new CR plan discussed in Wednesday’s conference meeting, according to multiple members in the room, would extend funding until Oct. 31, with discretionary spending cuts for that duration of that due to a topline spending level of $1.471 trillion — the number from the House GOP’s “Limit, Save, Grow” partisan debt limit bill from earlier this year that was consistent with fiscal year 2022 levels. That is in line with a suggested change from Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), chair of the Republican Study Committee…..