Congressional Dems Seek To Pass CR, Avoiding Gov't Shutdown, Today

Speaking to the press, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) stated that she hoped Congress would pass a short-term continuing resolution that would keep the federal gov't funded until 18 February at some point today.

• Pelosi: "We plan to take up on the floor of the House sometime early today it will come out of Rules Committee and go to the floor. Then we'll pass it and send it over to the Senate....the obstacle to moving forward with most of what we want to do lies in the Senate in the person of Mitch McConnell. You'd like to make it look like 'oh, we can't get things [done].' No.. the Republicans will not come to the table to discuss it [passing the budget]."
• Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY): "This is a good compromise that allows an appropriate amount of time for both parties in both chambers to finish negotiations on appropriations. If there is a shutdown, it will be a Republican anti-vaccine shutdown. Democrats wants to get the gov't funded as soon as possible. It was not easy to reach this deal. It took a while to get Republican leadership on board, but I'm glad that we've gotten it done."
• A deal reached between Schumer and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (R-KY) comes with just over 24 hours left until gov't funding runs out at 23:59:59 on Friday 3 December. Major disagreements over whether vaccine mandates for private sector should be enacted, some GOP senators seeking to block CR in order to avoid these coming into force. Pelosi states that there is no way Dems would accept removing vaccine mandates as acceptable price to pay.