Speaker Paul Ryan eyes strategy for government shutdown fight

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The Hill:

House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) strategy for avoiding a government shutdown is taking shape, with his leadership team seeking a clean break from the divisive intraparty warfare that plagued John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) tenure.

 

GOP leaders on Monday predicted there would be no shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding and made clear that they expect an omnibus package to be approved with Democratic support before money runs out on Dec. 11.

 

“I do not see a shutdown happening in this process,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters during a 25-minute briefing in his office in the Capitol.

Majority Whip Steve Scalise (La.), the GOP’s chief vote-counter, issued a warning of his own, telling rank-and-file Republicans they need to play a constructive role in the legislative process.

“The vote that hurts our Conference is the no vote from a Member who hopes the bill passes, but relies on others to carry that load,” Scalise wrote in a letter to his GOP whip team. “That vote isn’t fair to the Members who shoulder the responsibility of voting yes, and it isn’t fair to the Republican Conference as a whole.”

The message to the GOP rank and file, delivered before most lawmakers had even returned to Washington from the Thanksgiving break, appeared clear: This funding fight needs to be different.

House GOP leaders have repeatedly been forced to lean on Democrats to fund the government, a pattern that Boehner was helpless to stop despite repeated attempts to unify the conference.

This time, Ryan’s team is pushing more of their members to line up behind a catchall, $1.1 trillion spending bill and play a bigger role in averting a shutdown.