WASHINGTON — On Oct. 1, when the 2016 fiscal year starts, the U.S. government will shut down, unless Congress and the White House can agree on a bill that would keep money moving from the Department of the Treasury to the federal agencies and programs it funds.
The legislative crisis is a near repeat of the dispute that triggered a 16-day shutdown in October 2013. More than 40 conservative Republicans have announced they won’t vote for any appropriations that include federal funding for the women’s health group Planned Parenthood, which is being targeted by abortion opponents. Senate Democrats have vowed to block legislation that cuts the funding, while the president has said he’d veto every Republican bill proposed so far.
That leaves Speaker John Boehner with only one way to avoid a shutdown: ask his Democratic counterpart, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, for help.
Republicans won 247 seats in the House in 2014, more than any year since 1928, and retook control of the Senate for the first time since 2006. The party’s landslide midterm victory hasn’t been enough to give its conservative wing the freedom it craves to rewrite major government programs. Boehner finds himself right where he was in 2013, when he depended on Pelosi to deliver the Democratic votes he needed to reopen the government over the objections of hard-line Republicans who wanted to deny funding for the Affordable Care Act and limit federal borrowing.
The two don’t socialize, but Pelosi has publicly described herself as having a “good rapport” with Boehner, who replaced her as speaker in 2011 after Republicans won the House from Democrats. In April, Boehner was photographed smooching Pelosi in the Rose Garden of the White House at a ceremony celebrating the signing of a landmark Medicare reform package that resolved disputes over doctor reimbursement formulas dating from the Clinton administration. Pelosi and Boehner were the main architects of that deal. They drew effusive praise from Obama, who thanked everyone in attendance, including Boehner, for “a gorgeous piece of legislation.”
