Michael Conroy/AP Images Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota
- Republican Sen. Mike Rounds said he plans to vote against the current short-term funding extension introduced by the GOP leadership.
- Rounds said that the use of short-term funding bills since September has been damaging to the military and is no longer tenable.
- He becomes the second GOP senator to come out against the current funding bill in the last 24 hours.
- If no funding bill is passed by the end of the day Friday, the federal government will enter a partial shutdown.
GOP Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota said he plans to vote against the short-term government funding bill put forward by Republicans, increasing the risk of a government shutdown over the weekend.
Congress has until the end of Friday to pass a funding bill or the federal government will enter a partial shutdown, including the possible furlough of hundred of thousands of federal workers.
The current GOP plan is to pass a bill, introduced in the House on Tuesday, to extend the deadline to February 16 while keeping the current funding levels. The legislation is known as a continuing resolution (CR).
Rounds told CNN's "New Day" that the government needs to stop running on CRs, which leave many federal agencies in limbo in terms of funding. The government has been operating under a series of short-term CRs since September, when the new fiscal year began (this would be the fourth CR of the year).
In an interview with Sen. Angus King, an independent who typically caucuses with Democrats, Rounds agreed after King said there should be no CR that would "kick it down the road for another month."
"I agree with Angus," Rounds said. "And that's the reason why I'm opposing the CR in its current form as well. And it's not because immigration isn't included. For me, it's a matter of defense."
Rounds is the second Republican in as many days to come out against the current GOP funding plan, after Sen. Lindsey Graham. Both of them raised concerns over the uncertain funding flows for the military that comes as part of a CR.
Every Republican senator and at least 10 Democratic members would need to vote for the CR in order to avoid a filibuster. With Rounds and Graham's defections, the path to avoid a shutdown becomes even more perilous.
Rounds also expressed a fatigue with the CR strategy that the Republican leadership continues to employ.
"I voted for the first one when leadership asked in October," Rounds said. "They said, look, we need time to work out the deal. But we see no changes, no deal being done."
Both King and Rounds said that if the leadership from both parties came to lawmakers and told them they had a deal for long-term funding that included fixes for other legislative items like the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program but needed a few days, an even shorter extension would be fine.
"If they came to us and said, 'Okay, we've got a deal, here are the terms, we need five days in order to do the paperwork,' I think both of us would go along with that," King said, and Rounds agreed.
As it stands, the two parties are still not close to a deal on the DACA program and immigration in general. President Donald Trump foiled a bipartisan push in the Senate that would have included a codification of DACA and increased border security.
Rounds expressed frustration with the president for Trump's seemingly fluid position on immigration.
"I think it depends on when you spoke to him last and who was advising him last," Rounds said when asked if anyone knew what the president wanted in a deal.
The House is expected to vote on the bill as soon as Thursday, with the Senate voting shortly afterwards.