Partial Government Shutdown Likely to Stretch Into January – The Wall Street Journal

The Senate convened briefly Thursday afternoon before adjourning until Monday, Dec. 31, the latest sign that lawmakers don’t expect to reach an agreement to end the shutdown this year. The Senate session Monday is likely to be perfunctory and brief, absent any developments.

Currently in its sixth day, the third partial government shutdown of the year began on Saturday after President Trump and House Republicans upended a bipartisan Senate agreement to fund the government through Feb. 8, with Mr. Trump insisting on securing $5 billion for the wall.

The shutdown has affected nine of 15 federal agencies, forcing about 380,000 employees to take unpaid leave, also known as furlough, while other workers, deemed essential employees, are set to work without pay.

Neither the House nor the Senate are scheduled to hold any votes before Monday at the earliest, and lawmakers and congressional aides from both parties were pessimistic any agreement to reopen the government would be struck before Democrats take control of the House on Thursday, Jan. 3.

“We have not been able to reach an agreement with regards to the leadership on both sides,” Sen. Pat Roberts (R., Kan.) said resignedly to reporters in a Capitol otherwise deserted of lawmakers. “It’s clear that we on the Republican side do not want to vote for a bill the president won’t sign.”

Mr. Roberts said the impasse would remain until congressional Democrats and Mr. Trump cut a deal. “That’s exactly what has to happen. Right now we are not there,” he said.

Mr. Trump has appeared to harden his stance in recent days that he won’t agree to a spending deal unless it includes billions in funding for the wall along the border with Mexico. Meanwhile, Democrats on the brink of taking back the House next week have little incentive to cede to Mr. Trump now. Given the stalemate, Hill aides said Thursday that they didn’t expect to strike a deal before Jan. 3 unless those dynamics were to suddenly change.

“The president does not want the government to remain shut down, but he will not sign a proposal that does not first prioritize our [country’s] safety and security,” the White House said in a statement Thursday. Mr. Trump has been calling legislators about the shutdown and has been in regular contact with his negotiating team, a White House official said.

In a statement late Thursday, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), who is expected to be elected speaker on Jan. 3, said that House Democrats plan to “act swiftly” to end the shutdown but wouldn’t fund the wall.

One Republican lawmaker said that Mr. Trump spoke to senators and House members on Thursday but the White House’s negotiators are pessimistic about the possibility of a quick breakthrough.

“His team has pretty much come the conclusion that the Democrats are not serious about any kind of compromise and that there’s not a whole lot of purpose in throwing proposal after proposal out there,” the lawmaker said.

Democrats said the president was the one being intransigent.

“There’s absolutely no reason for a partial government shutdown, and this is happening because the president is rejecting multiple, bipartisan options to fund the government and provide billions in additional border security funding,” Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said on Twitter Thursday.

Congressional leaders reached a deal last week not to hold any votes until a deal is struck, at which point lawmakers would be given 24 hours’ notice to return to Washington.

The prolonged gridlock has frustrated lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, who had hoped to avoid a shutdown. Congressional Republicans would prefer to cut a deal this year, while they still control both chambers, but GOP aides said neither Mr. Trump nor Democrats have shown any willingness to budge.

Democrats noted that Mr. Trump had said earlier this month that he would be “proud” to shut down the government over the border wall, keeping the political blame squarely on the president.

On Thursday, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said the two sides remained far apart “because of the president’s insistence on keeping the government closed over his expensive and impractical wall.”

If the shutdown lasts until the new Congress begins, Mrs. Pelosi is expected to move quickly to pass a bill funding the government through Feb. 8 and send it to the Senate. If it passes that chamber, it would still need to be signed by the president to end the impasse.

That bill, which has already been passed by the Senate, would extend current border-security funding, including for fencing, levees and technology but not a concrete wall. Republicans said those funds constitute wall money, while Democrats said that is border security, not wall funding.

Spending bills require 60 votes to clear procedural hurdles in the Senate, where Republicans hold a 51-49 majority, giving Democrats leverage in the talks.

Mr. Trump had initially demanded that Congress include $5 billion in border-wall funding as part of any year-end spending bill. But in a series of quick reversals last week, he appeared to back off that demand, prompting the Senate to pass the stopgap spending bill with no border-wall funding under the belief he would sign it. Buoyed by House Republicans demanding a bigger fight over the wall, Mr. Trump threatened to veto that bill, upending the negotiations and leading to Saturday’s shutdown.

—Peter Nicholas contributed to this article.

Write to Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@wsj.com