House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said yesterday in his weekly press conference in the Capitol that he expects the House will consider a stopgap funding measure to avoid a government shutdown when it returns from recess in September.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) had said earlier on Wednesday that members were talking about moving a continuing resolution before the chamber adjourns for the August recess next week but had not made a final decision.  “We have a limited number of legislative days when we get back in September,” Rogers said.

Congress is scheduled to return from a five-week recess on September 8. The House will be in session for eight legislative days before taking another weeklong recess. Then it would return on September 29, a day before the end of the current fiscal year.

Without a new government funding bill by October 1, the government would shut down.  The limited number of days in session would require relatively quick approval of a spending bill to avoid a shutdown a month before the midterm elections. Boehner said “I imagine it would g into early December.  An expiration date of early December would require more negotiating with a Democratic Senate instead of a potential new Republican Senate in 2015.

The government shut down for 16 days last October when Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and other Republicans staged events to whip up support for using a government shutdown showdown to defund the President Obama’s healthcare law.