Congressional leadership is publicly mulling another stopgap spending bill to prevent a third government shutdown as lawmakers race to finalize a mammoth funding legislation.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the No. 2 Senate Republican, said on Tuesday that with the timeline for votes slipping in the House, lawmakers could be forced to approve a days-long continuing resolution (CR) before Friday night’s deadline.
“It just means we’re going to be here into the weekend perhaps and there may have to be some measures take to keep the lights on, but we’ll get it done,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
Asked if one of those measures would be a stopgap bill, he added: “That would be the one thing we could do, yeah.”
The talk of needing another short-term funding bill comes as lawmakers struggle to iron out the final hurdles to getting a deal on the omnibus, which would fund the government through the end of September.
Both Cornyn and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pointed at Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding as an issue, highlighting the proposed border wall and immigration enforcement funding.
Congress has until Friday at midnight to pass legislation to prevent the third partial government closure in as many months.