The veto threat comes amid House Republicans’ attempts to use must-pass spending bills as a way to advance anti-abortion measures and other conservative health priorities.
Republicans have included anti-abortion measures in almost every appropriation bill, complicating negotiations with the Senate and risking a government shutdown.
“House Republicans had an opportunity to engage in a productive, bipartisan appropriations process, but instead, with just over two months before the end of the fiscal year, are wasting time with partisan bills that cut domestic spending to levels well below the (Fiscal Responsibility Act) agreement and endanger critical services for the American people,” the White House said in a statement Monday.
Some Democrats in the House are looking to force votes on amendments in committee, but most are also relying on the Senate to force bipartisan negotiations.
Senate appropriators have been writing their own funding bills and advancing them out of committee with bipartisan votes. Some Senate Republicans have acknowledged that compromises will be necessary to get the 60 votes needed to end debate and move toward passage.
“I don’t know anything that’s going on in the House, but 60 votes in the Senate, either to make room to restrict abortion or to enhance or to increase its availability?” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said earlier this month. “I don’t know how something would pass the Senate.”
Still, enough hardline GOP members in the House could hold firm and force Democrats to accept a messy compromise in order to avoid a shutdown.
