Senate Agrees to CR Through Wednesday, Still Debating Cromnibus

This afternoon the Senate agreed to the second short-term Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government open through Wednesday, December 17, after a morning of high stakes drama where the words “government shutdown” were once again heard.  If this second CR did not pass, government funding would have expired at midnight.

The Senate is trying to complete work on FY2015 funding and a few other measures before bringing the 113th Congress to a close.   One way or another, this Congress will end and the new 114th Congress — with Republicans in control of both the House and Senate — will convene in early January.

The FY2015 funding bill, called a “cromnibus” because it combines a CR (through February 27, 2015) for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and a full-year (through September 30, 2015) omnibus appropriations for the rest of the government is very controversial because of policy provisions (“riders”) that were added by House and Senate negotiators in order to reach a compromise.  The bill narrowly passed the House on Thursday and is now struggling to win the support of enough Senators to secure passage there.

Tea Party Republicans Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) are seen as the leaders in opposing the cromnibus because it does not send a strong enough message to the President about Republican dissatisfaction with the President’s executive order on immigration.  Cruz is viewed as the architect of last year’s 16-day government shutdown, which many establishment Republicans opposed and have vowed to prevent from occurring again.  Several were quoted today questioning the Cruz-Lee strategy today.  Sen. Orrin Hatch (R), Utah’s senior senator, told reporters “I don’t see any end game that can be won, other than irritating people.”  Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said it was “not in keeping with our Republican commitment to return to normal order and to show the people of this country that we can govern responsibly.”

Tea Party Republicans are not the only ones unhappy with the cromnibus.  Liberal Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) are equally unhappy with a provision that changes the Dodd-Frank financial regulations and members of both parties object to modifications to the campaign finance law.