Congress has a deal to prevent a government shutdown — but it may not have the time to pass it.

Lawmakers spent so long in talks on how to fund the government for the next six months that federal agencies might still close briefly before new spending legislation can be passed and signed. The deadline is 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

If Congress resolves a shutdown before Monday morning, the effects might be minimal, as most federal workers would be off for the weekend anyway. But if a closure goes longer, more than half of IRS employees would face furloughs at the height of tax filing season. Active-duty service members — about 1.3 million — would remain on the job without pay. So would Transportation Security Administration screeners, many of whom called in sick in protest after a previous shutdown dragged on for weeks, sparking nationwide travel delays.

Here are the paths Congress could take between now and when the clock strikes midnight.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) leads a historically narrow majority, with just two seats. And within that majority, he’s been unable to control a sizable number of archconservatives, who refuse to vote with him on most spending bills. Enough of those far-right rebels sit on the House Rules Committee — which normally must approve legislation before it goes to the floor — that Johnson has instead opted to move to suspend the rules of the House to shepherd business along. That takes a two-thirds vote, which requires at least some Democrats to join most Republicans in support. The House will consider the new funding legislation, worth upward of $1 trillion, by suspension this time, too.

The rules require lawmakers to receive 72 hours’ notice before a bill is voted on. Johnson could move to suspend the rules — including the 72-hour wait — and put the funding bill on the House floor sooner. That could mean forcing a vote immediately after the text is ready. It could mean waiting a day or two. There is some appetite for that approach within the House GOP.

Some form of funding bills has been around since the summer, when the measures began moving through committees. Lawmakers have had plenty of time to do their own research and probably don’t need the full 72 hours to review the new bills, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), a key appropriations leader, told The Washington Post on Tuesday.

“Do I think that there’s been ample opportunity and ample time to read these bills, to digest these bills, to talk to people? Yes. And more than 72 hours,” he said. “But if there’s somebody out there who, by the way, doesn’t know how they’re going to vote and they need a little bit more time, fine.”

Congress often passes stopgap legislation called continuing resolutions, or CRs, that extend funding for federal agencies at current levels while lawmakers continue haggling over longer-term spending bills, called appropriations. They’ve already done it several times since last September.

If Johnson wants to take the full 72-hour window, and the Senate needs time to debate and vote, the two chambers could pass another very short CR to buy themselves a few more days.

A major downside to that: After Friday, Congress is staring at a 16-day recess, and lawmakers are itching to leave Washington and get back to their districts. A short-term CR would eat into that time.

Plus, Congress is passing these funding bills six months into the 2024 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Lawmakers are ready to move on to drawing up 2025 spending bills and want to finish the 2024 bills as soon as they can.

“I think we’ll be able to operate and get our work done without the need to take this thing into the weekend,” said Rep. Steve Womack (Ark.), another key GOP appropriations leader. “We won’t move on anything until we get this piece out of the way.”

Under the Constitution, funding bills must originate in the House, which means the Senate has to wait for it to pass there. But if the upper chamber gets antsy, there is a way it can go first.

That would be done through an exotic and rarely used measure called a “deeming resolution.” With the consent of all 100 members, the Senate could declare that once the legislation passes the House, it should also be considered passed by the Senate.

But there’s a reason the procedure is rarely used: All 100 senators hardly ever agree. On anything. And some senators have already signaled they will hold up the funding bill when it arrives in their chamber to force votes on certain amendments or extract concessions from leadership. That makes the deeming resolution as unlikely a solution as it is a creative one.

Johnson could lead Congress to endure a brief shutdown by moving to suspend the rules of the House to pass the bills but still adhering to the 72-hour rule. A large chunk of the GOP conference is committed to that review period, and throwing out the three-day window could cost Johnson even more votes from his party.

That means if Johnson publishes the funding bills on Wednesday, the House would probably vote on Saturday, pushing past the shutdown deadline before the Senate even has a chance to consider the legislation. (It could need at least 30 hours to debate, unless members agree to be faster than that.)

But Congress has actually bought itself a little extra time to solve government shutdowns with each of its recent CRs: It has been setting the deadlines on Fridays, so if the government does shut down, lawmakers have the weekend to try to pass new legislation while most federal workers are already off the clock.

Even a weekend shutdown does have consequences: Federal workers on duty Saturday and Sunday go unpaid (though they would receive backpay), and others would be furloughed. Some crucial government services that operate over weekends would be offline for a short time. And there are political consequences, too. But to many in Congress, enduring a very brief shutdown might be worth it if the effects are limited.

“If we shut down Friday night, nothing gets affected,” Diaz-Balart said. “I’m glad that, in essence, if there’s a shutdown for a weekend, it becomes a technicality more than a real problem.”