Johnson: ‘We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history’
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Monday the government shutdown is on its way to being one of the longest in history unless Democrats accept the House-passed, GOP-crafted stopgap bill to reopen the government.
“We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history, unless Democrats dropped their partisan demands and passed a clean, no-strings-attached budget to reopen the government and pay our federal workers,” Johnson said in a press conference on the 13th day of the government shutdown.
Congressional leaders have been locked in a standoff over government funding as Democrats demand that Republicans make concessions on health care, notably Affordable Care Act tax credits that are expiring at the end of the year. Republican leaders have refused to negotiate on health care during a shutdown, arguing that that Democrats must accept the “clean” funding stopgap the House passed in September — and which has failed to advance in the Senate seven times.
The shutdown, 13 days and counting, already marks one of the longest federal government funding lapses in modern history.
The longest government shutdown, which was also the last time a federal funding lapse occurred, was from 2018 to 2019 during President Trump’s first term, lasting 35 days.
The second-longest shutdown under former President Clinton lasted 21 days, while funding lapses under former President Obama in 2013 and former President Carter in 1978 lasted 17 days.
“Republicans are eager to return to the actual negotiating table to finish out full-year appropriations and do work on all the other matters before us, but we won’t negotiate in smoke-filled back rooms, and we won’t negotiate as hostages,” Johnson said Monday.
The Speaker has kept the House in an extended recess during the shutdown, canceling weeks of previously scheduled votes as Republicans aim to pressure Senate Democrats into accepting their stopgap funding measure.
Some Republicans have voiced discontent with that tactic, arguing that the chamber could work on measures like regular full-year appropriations bills and other legislation even during a shutdown.
Johnson, though, defended the move.
“You can poll individual House Republicans, maybe you should, and 98.7 percent of them will tell you that this is the right thing,” Johnson said.
“We are working on appropriations,” Johnson said. “The next package of bills is being prepared.”
“I don’t know what the Democrats are doing, but the House Republicans have been very busy. They’re doing some of their best work in the district, helping their constituents navigate this crisis that’s been created by [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer [D-N.Y.] and the Democrats. The Schumer Shutdown, it causes real pain for real people, veterans, the elderly people who rely upon these services,” Johnson added.