By Moira Warburton and Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate will prepare temporary spending legislation that would avert a partial government shutdown at the end of the month, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on Thursday.
“Time is not a luxury that Congress has right now,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. He said lawmakers in the chamber would spend the next several days trying to reach a deal that Republicans and Democrats alike could support.
Congress must pass spending legislation before the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1 to avoid furloughing thousands of federal workers and shutting down a wide swath of government operations weeks before the Nov. 5 election.
A bill that would have paired six months of funding with controversial election-law changes opposed by Democrats failed in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Wednesday. House Speaker Mike Johnson said after that vote that he would try another approach but did not provide details.
The two sides are also at odds over how long they should extend temporary funding. Johnson has advocated for a six-month extension, which would take the issue off the table until next spring, when his Republicans could potentially control both the White House and Congress.
Democrats are pushing for a shorter three-month extension, which would require Congress to tackle the issue by the end of this year, when Democratic President Joe Biden will still be in the White House and Democrats are still in charge in the Senate.
A lengthy extension of the current $1.2 trillion funding plan also would hamper government operations because it would prevent agencies like the Department of Defense from launching new projects.
(Reporting by Moira Warburton, Andy Sullivan and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)
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