House GOP to delay vote on government funding measure

House GOP to delay vote on government funding measure
By Erik Wasson and Molly K. Hooper - 09-11-13 01:41 PM ET

House GOP leaders have delayed a vote on a bill to avert a government shutdown until next week.

An aide to Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) confirmed the decision, which is designed to give GOP leaders more time to round up votes.

Leaders have been scrambling to gain 217 votes for their plan to fund the government through Dec. 15 while forcing the Senate to vote up or down on a measure to defund ObamaCare.

The plan has faced opposition from dissatisfied conservatives who argue it won't actually lead to the defunding of the healthcare law. They are pushing to include language defunding ObamaCare in the resolution funding the government.

But many in the Republican party don't want to do that because they expect it would force a government shutdown that would then be blamed on the GOP.

Some have argued the only way the GOP could lose control of the House next year is to be blamed for a government shutdown.

The government will shut down on Oct. 1 without a new funding bill.

House leaders also pushed back a final vote on a separate bill targeting the healthcare law until Thursday, presumably to give lawmakers something to vote on instead of the spending bill.

The House will depart for a long weekend Thursday afternoon, having been in session just over three days after returning from a five-week recess.

The leadership plan unveiled Tuesday would send a "clean" continuing resolution to the floor that would keep spending levels at the $986 billion per year level dictated by the automatic spending cuts known as the sequester.

A House rule would force the Senate to vote on a separate measure to defund ObamaCare before the Senate could vote on the clean CR bill.

Conservatives argued after the plan was unveiled that the House was giving away any leverage it had by not putting the ObamaCare language on the must-pass legislation itself.

The House plan would force the Senate to take a vote, but it would likely be defeated. The Senate could then move the clean funding bill.

GOP leaders announced the delay of the CR vote in an email to all their members on Wednesday afternoon.

Conservatives attending the weekly Republican Study Committee meeting were debating how to proceed when they received the news.

"We aren't going to have a CR vote this week which is a good thing, because there was so much dissension in there, I think we'll come back with something stronger," Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) told The Hill.

Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) said the roughly 40 votes the House has taken so far to end the healthcare law were like exhibition games.

"We've never put it on truly must-pass legislation," he complained.

Leaders can only afford 16 defections on their plan, which would presumably need to be passed without any Democratic votes. Huelskamp and others vowed to vote against the rule for consideration of the bill unless they were given the chance to amend the core CR text with defunding language.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) this week warned his conference that a government shutdown could backfire on his party. Cantor argued that getting spending to stay at lower sequester levels is a victory.