McCarthy signals House could soon vote on short-term spending bill to avert shutdown

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said the chamber would vote on a short-term spending bill soon after holding a key vote to proceed with four year-long appropriations bills on Tuesday night

‘The Republicans will put on the floor a move to secure our border. I think that’s the appropriate way to be able to keep government funded, secure border while we continue to keep government open to work on the rest of the appropriations process,’ McCarthy told reporters in the morning. 

He reiterated that lawmakers would be back within hours to vote on a procedural measure, known as a rule, to proceed with debate on four of 12 appropriations bills that the House GOP pledged to pass. Conservatives have insisted that each individual bill should get a separate vote, in contrast with the all-in-one ‘omnibus’ spending bill Democrats passed when they controlled the previous Congress.

‘Tonight we’re back in session. We will vote on a rule to bring up four more appropriation bills. That will be a total of five more than the Senate has been able to pass. If we get through these next four, that would be 72% of all the discretionary spending,’ McCarthy also said.

‘I would also this week put on the floor, [a] continuing resolution that secures our border.’

The House and Senate must come to some kind of agreement on how to fund the government by the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30, or risk a partial government shutdown.

Leaders in both parties have agreed that a stopgap funding bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), will be needed to give lawmakers both time to cobble out all 12 bills. A CR is normally an extension of the current fiscal year’s policies.

However, conservative opposition to extending the previous Democratically-held Congress’ priorities has inspired several House GOP proposals for CRs that would enact deep spending cuts for a 30-day duration. Even still, attempts so far to pass a CR in the House have been scuttled over hardliners refusing to vote for one on principle. 

Each of those proposals has also included the House GOP’s border security bill, known as H.R. 2.

The House is returning Tuesday after a week of disarray that saw two key procedural votes on military spending go down in flames over disagreements over how to avoid a government shutdown. 

But sources who spoke with Fox News Digital indicated there was some optimism that Tuesday night’s rules vote, lining up individual House votes on the military, agriculture, Homeland Security and State Department appropriations bills, will pass. 

One GOP aide described the sentiment as, ‘Cloudy with a chance of miracles.’

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, however, McCarthy did not say what would happen to the CR if the evening rules vote failed.

‘Well, the CR is under another rule,’ McCarthy said when asked if the CR would still get a vote. ‘Let me be clear. Tonight, there’s a rule about four appropriations bills. We’ve already passed one of them. There’s 12 overall. If we finish these four with the other… that would be 72% of all discretionary spending of the 12 bills that need to get taken up.’

‘We believe in securing the border. If the president’s willing to do that, we will continue to fund government for a short time period to finish the rest of the job.’

Fox News’ Tyler Olson contributed to this report