The Senate has just hours left to pass a spending bill before a midnight shutdown deadline

WASHINGTON — Congress is running out of time to avert a government shutdown, a potentially nightmarish scenario for a nation already gripped by an intensifying pandemic and mounting economic headwinds.

The Senate is expected to take up a measure Friday afternoon that would fund the federal government for one week, just hours ahead of a midnight deadline. If they fail to pass the bill, it would result in a government shutdown on Saturday morning. The bill has already passed the House of Representatives. The measure would then have to be signed into law by President Donald Trump, something a White House spokesman said Friday he is expected to do.

Congress has for months known about the looming expiration of government funding, but lawmakers sought to use the deadline to force action on a long-stalled emergency economic relief package. With the stimulus talks now bogging down, congressional leaders have scrambled to approve a one-week “continuing resolution” to buy more time to hammer out the elusive deal.

Complicating matters, lawmakers still have not reached an agreement on how to fund the federal agencies beyond the stopgap bill. They are expected to use the one-week extension to try and resolve their differences over that as well. Among other things, they remain divided over funding for homeland security projects.

Several potential threats to the one-week funding bill appeared to dissipate on Friday. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., dropped his suggestion that he would hold up quick passage of the spending bill due to an unrelated dispute over the annual defense policy bill. Paul had objected to language in the defense legislation limiting the president’s ability to draw down troops from abroad. On Friday, he told reporters: “I think it’s a pretty important principle to discuss, so we did hold things up for a day on that, but we’re not going to on the [spending bill].”

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., have also suggested slowing down or blocking the must-pass spending bill over their demands that the Senate hold a vote on providing another round of $1,200 stimulus checks as part of a relief package. Hawley later ruled out blocking the continuing resolution this week and it appeared unlikely Sanders would follow through on his threat.

Other Republican senators have suggested they could threaten the one-week continuing resolution until they get a vote on their legislation to end government shutdowns. That issue appeared likely to get resolved, according to congressional aides involved in negotiations.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said he would quickly pass the one-week government spending bill. Due to the rules of the U.S. Senate, any senator can block “unanimous consent” to rapidly approve new legislation, making it easy for any one Senator to scramble the timing of a vote. This would allow an intransigent senator could push final passage of the one-week bill into the weekend.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the second-ranking Senate Republican, told reporters on Friday that leadership was still negotiating with various lawmakers but that the timing of a vote on the stopgap measure remained unclear. Thune suggested the Senate could agree to allow votes on the various matters pushed by Sanders, Paul, and the other lawmakers, or decide to allow votes on none of them.

Even if the government funding bill passes, serious obstacles and deadlines loom for congressional lawmakers in the coming days.

They must resolve a number of policy disputes before they can pass the broader funding bill next week that is supposed to keep agencies operating until Sept. 30, 2021. Negotiations have particularly snagged over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, according to aides involved in deliberations.

And the inability to reach a deal on federal funding levels hampers talks on the broader economic relief package many economists say is necessary to stabilize a flagging economy. Lawmakers have said they will only approve a broader economic relief package as part of a bipartisan deal between appropriators on funding for the federal government.

Appropriators have as a result discussed approving a second temporary continuing resolution next week if federal funding legislation remains out of reach. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., appeared to allude to that possibility in her press conference on Thursday, suggesting talks could continue through Christmas. But that would pose other challenges, because delaying talks past Christmas would take lawmakers right up against the deadline for several critical emergency relief programs for millions of jobless Americans and renters that are set to expire at the end of the year.

Bipartisan discussions over the broader relief package appeared teetering on the brink of collapse, with congressional leaders descending into bickering and a group of bipartisan lawmakers struggling to cement a final breakthrough agreement.

Lawmakers have remained unable to break partisan disagreements over providing state and local aid, as well as a GOP-backed liability shield insulating firms from coronavirus-related lawsuits. McConnell has suggested dropping both matters from the final legislation, but congressional Democrats have rejected that idea since it would leave states and cities without adequate support. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin released a proposal earlier this week that included stimulus checks but dramatically reduced the bipartisan group’s proposed spending on unemployment benefits, and was immediately ruled out by Democrats.

“We’ve had an eight-months impasse around liability issues, and it is proving to be extremely difficult to close that distance,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who has been involved in trying to break the logjam over the issue.

Sanders and Hawley, the surprising bipartisan duo, has made a forceful push for stimulus checks to be included in the next round of economic relief. But it remained unclear if any relief package would have a chance of passage. Asked about being blamed for shutting down the federal government, Sanders told reporters: “They can blame me for anything they want. But people back home by the millions are going to be blaming Congress for inaction, for leaving their children to go hungry, or get evicted.”