Johnson’s government funding bill advances despite GOP defections

The House on Tuesday advanced Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to prevent a government shutdown by a slim margin, with two GOP defections, dealing a blow to Republicans’ negotiating position in government funding talks just weeks before a shutdown deadline.

The dissenting Republicans joined Democrats in a vote that almost took down what’s known as a rule, a procedural step that governs debate on the House floor. Without it, the underlying bill cannot proceed to a vote. Johnson (R-La.) is attempting to pair a six-month stopgap government funding bill to avert a shutdown on Oct. 1 with unrelated legislation to require proof of citizenship before registering to vote in federal elections.

Funding for the federal government expires Sept. 30, when the 2024 fiscal year ends. Without new legislation, the government would shut down, shuttering vital federal services just ahead of November’s election.

The trouble that the measure appeared to be in on Tuesday, when it passed on a knife’s-edge 209-to-206 vote, does not immediately mean a shutdown is more likely.

Still, the two GOP lawmakers who defected - Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and Matt Rosendale (Mont.) - could force Johnson to pause in his approach. Hard-right members disapproved of the stopgap bill, called a continuing resolution or CR, and instead prefer full-year spending bills. More governing-minded Republicans preferred a shorter CR that would allow Congress to vote on annual funding bills before the end of the calendar year. Johnson’s proposal would take the funding debate to March 28, when a new presidential administration could weigh in on the process.

The GOP-controlled House has voted on six continuing resolutions so far this fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, 2023; 56 Republicans voted against all of them. Already before the vote Tuesday, six Republicans across the ideological spectrum had said they oppose Johnson’s current funding play, potentially enough to sink the legislation. The vote on the rule does not guarantee passage of the bill; members usually support party leaders on procedural steps regardless of their ultimate vote on legislation.

Johnson said a final vote on his funding plan would happen Wednesday. The speaker has said there is no “fallback position” if the CR fails, but those close to Johnson say discussions are underway about how to get Republicans back on board.

Putting the bill’s prospects further in jeopardy, Democrats in the Senate called the proposal a nonstarter, and President Joe Biden said he would veto the measure if it reached the Oval Office.

Former president Donald Trump, the GOP nominee again this year, posted on his social media network that Republicans should “IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, GO FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION” without the voter registration provisions, claiming without evidence that Democrats were planning to rely on votes from undocumented immigrants in this year’s elections.

Trump has occasionally wanted Johnson to shut down the government and Johnson has resisted - not believing it would be a political win for Republicans. When Trump had expressed the threat privately in recent days, Republican allies tried to downplay it, saying he was simply looking for a negotiating position.

Trump has long believed shutdown fights help him, even though many of his advisers are more dubious. “It shows we’re fighting,” he has said. He so far hasn’t listened to those who tell him that Republicans will be blamed and that he doesn’t need a shutdown just before the election.

Even some senior Republicans opposed Johnson’s framework, though some said they would vote for it to support the politically vulnerable speaker - and to dodge blame for a possible government shutdown so close to the election. Many, including those on the powerful Appropriations Committee, agree with Democrats who prefer a shorter three-month CR that would expire shortly after the election and allow lawmakers to approve full-year spending bills during the end-of-year “lame duck” session.

Many Republicans - from moderates to the far right - were hesitant to support Johnson’s plan because they know it’s dead on arrival in the Senate and are demanding that the speaker game out what a final bipartisan bill would look like.

“What’s he going to do on September 30th?” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said. “Conservatives like me, we will not vote for a CR unless we know that we have a speaker, if we have a leader that is actually going to go to battle. Otherwise, it’s pointless. It’s really a waste of everyone’s time.”

Other Republicans oppose any continuing resolution on principle.

“It’s a cop-out. We’re constitutionally required to do one thing, and that’s pass a dadgum budget. And for 30 years we’ve chosen not to do that,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) told The Washington Post on Monday. “The CR is just a continuation of Nancy Pelosi and Charles E. Schumer’s spending. I don’t see that as being a route forward.”

In the Senate, Republicans queued up Tuesday to question Johnson’s strategy and Trump’s shutdown demand.

“This is a decision for Speaker Johnson and he’ll have to decide, are we more likely to have a Republican majority in the House of Representatives if we shut the government down or not?” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said. “I’m going to kind of trust him to check the temperature on that.”

Democrats are gauging whether House Republicans can pass any legislation within their own ranks before negotiating further on a final plan. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told Democrats in a closed-door meeting Tuesday that Republicans are threatening a shutdown to attempt to implement the archconservative Project 2025 playbook if they keep the majority and Trump wins the election, according to two people in the room, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private gathering.

Johnson’s allies were whipping votes from colleagues in the final hours and argued that passing the current proposal was imperative to set Johnson up with a firm hand ahead of entering bicameral negotiations with Democrats. The House’s failure to do so last year contributed to the ouster of then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and forced both McCarthy and Johnson to rely on Democratic votes to pass government spending bills.

“Let’s just be honest: Republican lack of unity has often sent us into negotiations with less leverage than we should have,” Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) said. “That is a fact of being in a conference that values rugged individualism over collective action. We just have to know that going into any fight.”

In response to skepticism by colleagues who believe Mike Johnson will eventually agree to drop the requirement for proof of citizenship for voter registration, Johnson said he’s “in this to win this.” Illegal noncitizen voting is vanishingly rare, and independent experts say the legislation would make it much harder for local jurisdictions to administer elections.

“This is a conviction I feel deeply in my heart,” he said. “I’m not going to engage in conjecture and game out all the outcomes. I think this is something that we should do, and that’s what we’re doing.”

But Democrats said the GOP was wasting time.

“We know how this ends. This ends in a bipartisan bill that has Democrats and Republicans on a CR. It doesn’t appear Republicans want to do that right now,” Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) told reporters.