A new year, another shutdown?

WASHINGTON —  When lawmakers returned to Washington this week, congressional leaders presented their colleagues with a late Christmas present: a $1.7-trillion proposal to avert a government shutdown later this month.

A deal would ensure that government employees, including California’s tens of thousands of servicemembers, continue to get paid.

To make that happen, both parties would have to get behind the deal before funding lapses. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York called the agreement “a good deal for Democrats and the country,” while House Speaker Mike Johnson touted the spending cuts Republicans have sought.

The deal, though, was quickly met with consternation from far-right House members, the same cohort that booted Kevin McCarthy from the speaker’s chair after he relied on Democratic votes to avert a government shutdown in September.

Will a compromise bill pass? Could the GOP’s rambunctious far right turn on Johnson? And when will we know how all this will affect California?

Hello, my name is Erin B. Logan. I cover Congress for The L.A. Times. Today, we are going to discuss the effort to keep the government running.

A deal is a deal

The top-line spending agreement reached by party leaders is similar to the debt-limit deal McCarthy and President Biden struck last spring. The compromise would include $886 billion for defense spending and $704 billion for nondefense discretionary spending.

The deal would also curtail the government’s ability to collect taxes from the nation’s richest people and corporations.

Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act increased the Internal Revenue Service’s budget to enable it to modernize so it can be more aggressive in collecting taxes from the wealthy. This drew harsh criticism from the GOP, which has long pushed to cut the agency’s budget. In a letter to colleagues, Johnson touted that the deal would claw back an additional $10 billion (for a total of $20 billion when added to McCarthy’s deal) from the IRS.

Specifics have yet to be ironed out, so it’s hard to tell how the deal might affect California. Some leaders have indicated they may need more time to draft legislation ahead of the shutdown deadlines.

Will it pass?

South Dakota’s John Thune, the GOP Senate whip, told reporters on Tuesday that it’s “unrealistic” for leaders to iron out specifics ahead of the shutdown deadlines, suggesting a clean extension until March to give them more time. Johnson has previously indicated he would not back an additional stopgap measure beyond his self-imposed deadlines. Johnson, though, might have to reconsider if the Senate is not ready to approve a bill by next Friday.

Funding for some agencies that are usually not a GOP priority, including those that handle agriculture, transportation and energy, is scheduled to lapse on Jan. 19. Funding for priorities that both parties usually deem essential, including defense, lapses on Feb. 2.

Thanks to the GOP’s razor-thin House majority, Johnson may not have enough support from his party to pass the bill without Democratic votes. Many far-right lawmakers have come out against the bill, with some even threatening to remove Johnson for not prioritizing their needs.

The archconservative Freedom Caucus on Sunday called the deal a “total failure,” saying it was “even worse than we thought.”

Far-right GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas this week pressed Johnson to shut down either the government or the border.

“I’m not trying to rattle about [a] shutdown for the sake of it,” Roy said Monday on Fox News. “But the people I represent they’re like, good Lord shut down the border or shut down the government until you wake up President Biden and [Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro] Mayorkas to do their job.”

Roy later said that removing Johnson from the speaker’s chair is “on the table.”

Johnson has told reporters he’s not worried about losing his job.

“Remember,” he said, “I am a hard-line conservative.”

The latest from the campaign trail

—Former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are set to face off in their final debate Wednesday night in Iowa before the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, Times writer Faith E. Pinho reported. The Republican front-runner, former President Trump, will skip the debate as he has in the past.

—Courting Black voters he needs to win reelection, President Biden on Monday denounced the “poison” of white supremacy in America, saying at the site of a deadly racist shooting at a South Carolina church that such ideology has no place in America, “not today, tomorrow or ever,” the Associated Press reported.

The view from Washington

—Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has prostate cancer, and his recent secretive hospitalization was for surgery and to treat a urinary tract infection related to that operation, his doctors said Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. The revelation follows days of questions about Austin’s hospitalization, the delays in notifying leaders — including the White House — and raises more questions about the transparency and truthfulness of the Defense Department.

—The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit appeared inclined during a hearing Tuesday to reject former President Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution on criminal charges that he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Times writer Sarah D. Wire reported.

The view from California

—The California Department of Transportation, teaming up with other state agencies, is asking technology companies by Jan. 25 to propose generative AI tools that could help California reduce traffic and make roads safer, especially for pedestrians, cyclists and scooter riders, Times writer Queenie Wong reported.

—For Vice President Kamala Harris, the impulse to escape Washington — where she faces Republican scorn and criticism within her own party — for downtime at home has been difficult to satisfy over the last few years, Times writer Courtney Subramanian reported. The vice president was also anchored to Washington during the first half of her term to cast tiebreaking votes in an evenly divided Senate.

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