House Freedom Caucus members held a press conference Tuesday in which they reiterated their demand to see all 12 appropriations bills advance out of committee before voting on any of them on the floor. But with two scheduled to come to the floor this week while some remain in committee, it remains unclear if they will block the bills.
Reflecting a letter sent in early July by a group of 21 conservatives, Freedom Caucus members at the Tuesday press conference said they must see all 12 appropriations bills advance out of the full committee before holding a floor vote on any of them.
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But as leadership wants to bring two appropriations bills up for a floor vote this week while four remain in committee, the agriculture appropriation bill and the military construction appropriation bill face an uncertain fate if they’re brought up.
The reason for them wanting to see all 12 appropriations is so they can see the total spending level for the year and then be able to vote accordingly.
“If their leadership believes that they're going to be able to trickle these out two at a time, three a week, four a week, that's just not going to be feasible because we will never be able to see what the total spending as the until the very end,” Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) said. “We want to see all 12 of the appropriation bills. We want leadership to uphold their end of the deal.”
But even as the members bemoaned the GOP leaders' attempt to bring the two bills to the floor, they made no direct threat of blocking any bills and strayed away from saying how they would vote should the bills be brought up to the floor.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), who sits on the House Rules Committee, which is scheduled to consider the military construction appropriation bill on Tuesday and the agriculture appropriation bill on Wednesday, made no statement about how he would vote when they get brought up in the committee.
Norman has been no stranger to voting against a bill he doesn’t like when it comes before him in the Rules Committee. Back when the debt ceiling bill came before the committee, he, along with Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), voted against the rule for the bill. Historically the majority party always votes for the rule even if they oppose the bill, and the minority party always votes against the rule even if they support the rule. But in this Congress, Republicans have broken that tradition and voted against rules on a number of occasions.
“I think you've seen what we've done with rules,” Norman said. “The three of us have exercised our right to see what's been proposed. And if we end up being against it will tell them and then will express it with our votes.”
But with such a short time period to pass the appropriations bills before the government shuts down on Oct. 1, and with the Congress being out for the whole month of August, party leaders feel the pressure to start voting on the appropriations bills sooner rather than later.
This sentiment is not felt by members of the House Freedom Caucus. Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) said that Congress “should not fear a government shutdown” because “most of what we do up here is bad anyway.”
Even with the deadline looming, House Freedom Caucus members said at the press conference that they wouldn’t support a short-term continuing resolution to keep the government running on "minibuses," which are groups of a few appropriations bills that can be voted on at once, to fund the government.
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The hard-line conservative members are adamant that they want to see all 12 bills voted on individually in order to fund the government, and they won’t accept any other way.
“Our speaker has an opportunity to be a transformational, historical speaker that stared down the Democrats, that stared down the free spenders, that stared down the president, and said, �?No, we're going to do what the American people elected us to do.’ And the House is going to say, �?No, we're going to pass a good Republican bill out of the House and force the Senate and the White House to accept it, or we're not going to move forward,’” Good said.