GOP leaders seek to head off government shutdown

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

House Republican leaders scrambled Thursday to head off a politically damaging government shutdown in two weeks over rebellious conservatives’ demand that any stopgap spending bill block federal funds for Planned Parenthood.

Leadership sought an outlet for GOP lawmakers’ outrage after this summer’s release of videos secretly recorded by abortion foes, who contend they show that Planned Parenthood illegally profits from selling tissue from aborted fetuses to medical researchers.

Unclear is whether a vote today to defund Planned Parenthood and other steps will be enough to placate conservatives, emboldened by widespread criticism of the organization at Wednesday’s GOP presidential debate.

Temporary funding legislation is needed to give the chronically dysfunctional Congress more time to sort through huge differences over a full-year spending bill that could ease a budget freeze facing the Pentagon and domestic agencies. Top congressional Democrats exiting a meeting with President Barack Obama on Thursday said any temporary funding measure should have a short time span and that Democrats would demand increases for domestic agencies.

“We want to make sure we have equal money for defense and nondefense,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

In the final months of the year, another possible shutdown looms over Obama’s demand that the GOP-led Congress increase the nation’s borrowing authority.