Lawmakers say government shutdown appears inevitable

A government shutdown increasingly looks inevitable as GOP opponents of a stopgap in the Senate seek to drag out the process ahead of a midnight Sunday deadline.

Opponents of the Senate stopgap, which is backed by leaders in both parties, are delaying a vote to give the House a chance to pass its own continuing resolution to fund government.

Senate conservatives want to give Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) more leverage to negotiate spending cuts and changes to immigration policy, leverage that would diminish if the Senate jams the House by moving first and passing a relatively clean stopgap.

It’s unclear if House Republicans will be able to rally around their own funding measure or if McCarthy would put the Senate bill up for a vote in the House once it passes the upper chamber.