Reform To Preclude Government Shutdowns Would Come In Handy Right Now

The looming September 30 federal government shutdown deadline is prompting some on Capitol Hill to once again point out pending reforms that, if enacted, would forever end the prospect of a federal government shutdown. “In 2019 I supported a bill that would have done away with government shutdowns forever,” Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) wrote in an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal last week on September 21. Though Senator Johnson’s 2019 reform passed out of committee, it never received a floor vote.

Johnson is now touting the revised, simplified version of his bill, the Eliminate Shutdowns Act, which he says “could end the drama and uncertainty of Congress’s budgetary dysfunction.” In his recent op-ed, Senator Johnson writes that his reworked proposal “simply provides for automatic two-week rolling continuing resolutions for any department for which an appropriation bill or longer-term continuing resolution hasn’t been passed,” adding that this change “would keep spending flat by prorating the previous year’s spending level.”

More Than A Dozen States Have An Automatic Continuing Resolution

An automatic continuing resolution mechanism would be new to federal lawmakers, but it’s something with which state officials are familiar. In fact, more than a dozen states have some version of an automatic continuing resolution on the books.

North Carolina became one of the most recent states to adopt an automatic continuing resolution, when lawmakers did so as part of the state budget enacted nine years ago. The purpose of adopting the automatic continuing resolution as a stopgap mechanism, Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger (R) explained, was “to eliminate the kind of brinkmanship” as well as the “governmental incompetence that you see at the federal level.”

Erica MacKellar, a senior policy specialist at the National Conference of State Legislatures, noted that one of the benefits of an automatic continuing resolution is that “it allows more time for negotiations, and keeps government services running.” An automatic continuing resolution reduces the urgency to pass a budget “on time,” which is the last day of June in most states, but proponents of an automatic continuing resolution believe it’s better to have a budget that is delayed than one that spends too much or is flawed in other ways.

“Fortunately, Congress has shown bipartisan support for flat-funding ‘automatic continuing appropriations,’ especially after the 35-day shutdown in 2018 and 2019,” wrote Kurt Couchman, fiscal policy fellow at Americans for Prosperity, in response to Senator Johnson’s op-ed. “Last Congress, for example, at least five Democrats and 18 Republicans in the Senate and four Republicans and 28 Democrats in the House sponsored the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act or related legislation.”

“Congress can learn from the states, where legislators see better results from focusing on the art of the possible for the final budget bill,” Couchman added. “Wisconsin and Rhode Island have prevented shutdowns for generations. North Carolina started after the 2016 budget bill, and the Kansas legislature enacted it this year.”

Congressman Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.), who voted for North Carolina’s automatic continuing resolution as a member of the North Carolina Senate back in 2016, points out that while an automatic continuing resolution could end shutdown politics in Washington, it doesn’t get at the root problem, which Edwards says is the lack of regular order in the federal budget process. “If we have regular order, we don’t need an automatic CR,” says Edwards.

Congressman Robert Wittman (R-Va.) introduced legislation in 2021 to restore regular order in the budget making process, an issue on which he has campaigned. “Returning to regular order —moving spending bills through the committee process where we read, debate, and vote on them — will go a long way towards bringing transparency back to the budget and appropriations process,” Representative Wittman noted during a 2020 interview, adding that he has introduced three bills to achieve that goal. One of Wittman’s bills would require Congress to stay in town during the summer, “until all 12 appropriations bills are passed, instead of adjourning for the August recess,” whereas another, the Inaction Has Consequences Act, “would hold Congress Members’ salaries if we do not pass regular appropriation bills before the end of the Fiscal year.”

The GOP-led U.S. House passed a continuing resolution on September 19 that would fund the federal government through November 21. If brought to the floor for final passage in the U.S. Senate, where Republicans have a 53-47 majority, the House-approved continuing resolution would pass. However, Senate Democrats have blocked the cloture motion to proceed to a final vote, which requires 60 votes.

Automatic continuing resolutions have proven effective at the state-level, with North Carolina demonstrating the utility of an automatic continuing resolution in past years when lawmakers from opposing parties couldn’t come to a budget agreement, as well as this year when lawmakers from the same party are having trouble reaching a deal. The current budget standoffs in Washington and Raleigh, though very different in nature, will both likely strengthen the case for federal adoption of an automatic continuing resolution.