Thune: Senate GOP will 'hold' budget reconciliation bill as backup plan to avoid shutdown

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) announced on Tuesday that Senate Republicans will “hold” any budget reconciliation framework passed by the House to use as a potential back-up plan to avoid a government shutdown at the end of September.

Thune told reporters that Senate Republicans will not act immediately on any budget resolution passed by the House in case they need to use the budget reconciliation vehicle to pass a government funding stopgap in September.

“If they give us a budget resolution as a vehicle, we will hold that subject obviously to be able to move a continuing resolution to fund the government,” Thune said.

“It’s a possibility that if necessary we could pull that budget resolution passed by the House and use it to fund government. I hope that’s not necessary,” he said.

“We’ve had conversations, productive conversations on both sides of the aisle, on a funding resolution that would carry us past the November election,” he added.

House Republicans last week unveiled a continuing resolution to fund the government until Dec. 4, but it’s not clear whether the proposal would have enough Democratic votes to pass both chambers of Congress.

GOP lawmakers are worried that Senate Democrats would filibuster a short-term government funding bill in September to trigger another shutdown before the midterm election.

Democrats opposed a clean continuing resolution last year because Republicans did not add language to the measure to extend enhanced health care premium subsidies that were due to expire at the end of 2025.

The Democratic filibuster resulted in a record-setting 43-day government shutdown.

Now Senate Republicans plan to hold any budget framework passed by the House, which would set the stage for a third budget reconciliation vehicle, through September in case they need to use it as a vehicle to pass a continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown.

“We will get a vote on a continuing resolution to fund the government in this work period,” Thune said Tuesday. “It’s possible that that would be something that would get punted into September,” Thune said, noting that GOP leaders may not know until then whether they’ll need to use a budget reconciliation package to avoid a government shutdown.

A budget reconciliation package can pass the Senate with a simple majority, thereby circumventing a Democratic filibuster.

Senate Republicans passed a $70 billion budget reconciliation package in June to provide funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol through 2029 despite strong Democratic opposition to funding those agencies without major reforms.

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