Congress is back after taking the summer off and lawmakers are wrangling over how to keep the federal government’s lights on after funding runs out at the end of the month. Virginia lawmakers are upset that they’re left with few good options.
Some of Virginia’s Republicans are some of the most conservative lawmakers in the nation. They’re fighting party leaders over a plan to fund the government until December, just after voters cast their ballot in this year’s election. Virginia Republican Morgan Griffith says that timeline doesn’t make any sense.
“So you’ll have a president who is on his way out, you’ll have a significant number of House and Senate members who are on their way out, and then they’re going to make major decisions that will impact the country? And whether it’s the Democrats who win or the Republicans who win, I think it ought to be the people who win make those decisions. So if we do a six month deal or a one year deal, you have all the folks who went to the ballot box and for whatever reasons were returned or given a seat by the people.”
While some lawmakers are drawing lines in the sand and making demands of party leaders, Griffith says he’s not going that route yet – though he’s keeping the door open to bargaining with leaders in the future.
“I am not personally putting anything in and saying if you do this then, but if there are some things in there I think we might not be able to get any other way, recognizing that it’s probably going to be December by hook or crook, then I might be cajoled into doing it, but it will be distasteful.”
Virginia Republican Dave Brat is also a member of the far right Freedom Caucus which is the group that pushed Speaker Boehner out of office. He says he’s disappointed that Speaker Ryan’s promise that things would be different never came to fruition.