Deal to advance Sen­ate ‘minibus’ spend­ing bill starts to take shape

— Tim­o­thy Wolff
Sen. Ron John­son (R‑WI) said Tues­day he would drop his objec­tion to com­bin­ing three appro­pri­a­tions bills if he is guar­an­teed a vote on leg­is­la­tion to stop gov­ern­ment shut­downs dur­ing the amend­ment process.
“Get me that vote and I’ll con­sent, I need to make sure I get a vote,” John­son said, speak­ing with reporters fol­low­ing a Sen­ate Repub­li­can lun­cheon on Tues­day.
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Last week, John­son demand­ed the Sen­ate take up each appro­pri­a­tions bill one by one, which has held up the process, empha­siz­ing that com­bin­ing the bills could weak­en the influ­ence con­ser­v­a­tives could have over the spend­ing bills.
“I didn’t ask for any­thing ini­tial­ly, but I appre­ci­ate the work the appro­pri­a­tors have done and they want to do it this way,” the Wis­con­sin sen­a­tor added.
Johnson’s bill, intro­duced with Sens. James Lank­ford (R‑OK) and Mag­gie Has­san (D‑NH) at the begin­ning of the year, “would imple­ment an auto­mat­ic con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion, on rolling 14-day peri­ods, based on cur­rent spend­ing lev­els enact­ed in the pre­vi­ous fis­cal year,” if there is a fund­ing lapse.
The poten­tial com­pro­mise would mean the Sen­ate would not have to vote this week on sus­pend­ing the rules, which would have required the unan­i­mous con­sent of 67 sen­a­tors in order to pass. How­ev­er, it would require the coop­er­a­tion of Democ­rats.
Sen. Susan Collins (R‑ME), the rank­ing mem­ber of the Appro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee, said t …