Senate Republicans are anxious to avoid giving Democrats another opening to force a government shutdown weeks before the midterm elections.

Why it matters: The appropriations process is a slog, Sen. Mitch McConnell's absence adds a complication and election season raises the stakes. Add to that the Senate is haunted by three shutdowns in just the past year.

• 🛠️ The annual, nuts-and-bolts funding process used to be more bipartisan, but it has become increasingly politicized.
• 🥫 It's only July, and senators are already talking about kicking the can down the road.

📢 What we're hearing: During multiple closed-door lunches before the Fourth of July break, senators raised fears about Democrats forcing another shutdown fight, multiple sources familiar with the discussions tell us.

• In the meetings, Majority Leader John Thune has stressed the need to ensure the Senate is not trapped in another funding emergency right before the election.
• Some senators are pushing for a short-term funding bill, known as a continuing resolution, to get them through the midterms.

🔎 Zoom in: Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) still wants to stick with the normal funding process to avoid a CR.

• But Collins has been vocal about her frustration with Democrats' unwillingness to vote for the funding bills in committee.
• Appropriations Vice Chair Patty Murray's (D-Wash.) "threat to vote against all of the appropriations bills, including those Democrats have helped draft, is contrary to the way I always operated with her when our roles were reversed," Collins told reporters last month.

🪖 Democrats, meanwhile, have blamed the Trump administration's hefty budget requests, including $1.5 trillion for defense spending. They accuse Republicans of being unwilling to negotiate on the top-line defense and non-defense spending.

• "We made it clear to the Republicans that we are not going to accept a gigantic war budget offer, that they have to be reasonable," Murray told reporters last month.
• The Trump administration also asked Congress last month for $87.6 billion in supplemental funding, most of it to cover costs related to the Iran war.

The intrigue: McConnell's (R-Ky.) medical absence from the Senate could make the hard job of fully funding government agencies even harder.

• The Appropriations Committee already had to delay markups of spending bills in part due to McConnell's hospitalization.
• There is only a one-seat margin on the Appropriations panel, and Republicans worry they can't count on Democratic votes as they have in the past.
• McConnell also chairs the subcommittee for defense appropriations — putting him in charge of one of the most pivotal spending bills and playing a key role in the requested supplemental package for Iran.

🗓️ The details: The deadline to fund the government next fiscal year is Sept. 30, about a month before the midterm elections.

• The Senate is scheduled to be in recess for all of October, to allow those up for reelection to focus on campaigning in their states.
• All that could be derailed if the government does not get funded.

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— Stef W. Kight

Mike Johnson will face the same problem next week that he faced last week: a bloc of Republicans willing to shut down the House floor over the GOP's signature election bill, the SAVE Act.

Why it matters: It's difficult to see how Johnson (R-La.) will overcome the paralysis that has overtaken the House floor — and Republicans across the conference are growing increasingly frustrated.

• Johnson presided over the ninth failed rule vote of his less-than-three-year-long speakership last week, this one tanked by 13 of his members.
• ⚡️ Frustration in the conference with a small band of conservatives who keep using procedural rule votes — once a rubber stamp for the majority — as leverage to force action on unrelated priorities extends well beyond the speaker and his leadership team.
• It was the fifth failed vote on a rule in this Congress, and the 12th since Republicans took the majority in January 2023. Before that, a rule hadn't failed in two decades.

Driving the news: For the last two working weeks, Johnson was forced to scrap planned legislative business and end the House's week early after his members took down a rule vote.

• 🥊 The bulk of those members tanked last week's rule vote for the National Defense Authorization Act because it doesn't include an amendment on the SAVE Act.
• The SAVE Act was also the culprit the previous week.

Between the lines: The repeated floor shutdowns are wearing on members who say they're wasting valuable legislative time.

• 💥 Rep. Carlos Giménez (R-Fla.) called the idea that the House rebels could force the Senate to pass the SAVE Act "insane."
• "The votes are where they are. I mean, you just got to accept reality," Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) told us.

🔮 What's next: Johnson's eyeing a third reconciliation bill as a way to try to pass a grant program incentivizing states to adopt voter ID laws through reconciliation, a process that would only require a simple majority in the Senate.

• ⏰ But time is running short to pass such a measure, and some hardliners are already saying grants wouldn't be enough to placate them.

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— Kate Santaliz