By Jacob Bogage, The Washington Post (c) 2024
Defying former president Donald Trump’s demand for a government shutdown, the Republican-controlled House appears poised Monday to advance a bipartisan funding bill to keep federal agencies open on the cusp of November’s elections.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) late on Sunday introduced a three-month funding extension with additional crisis financing for the Secret Service, the result of a compromise with congressional Democrats to avert an Oct. 1 shutdown.
But the legislation does not include new voter registration restrictions that Trump demanded ahead of November’s vote. Without that measure – “and every ounce of it,” as the former president wrote on social media – Trump pressed Johnson to block new funding bills.
Instead, the speaker wrote to GOP colleagues that a shutdown this late in the election calendar, when millions of voters are already eligible to cast their ballots, could cost Trump a shot at the White House and Republicans their narrow House majority. He called the strategy an “act of political malpractice.” The powerful House Rules Committee is set to vote Monday evening to approve the bill for a floor vote.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was far more blunt when discussing that tack earlier this month: “The one thing you cannot have is a government shutdown. It would be politically beyond stupid for us to do that right before the election because certainly we’d get the blame. One of my favorite sayings is, ‘There’s no education in the second kick of a mule.’ We’ve been here before. I’m for whatever avoids a government shutdown.”
Most House Republicans, though, are still expected to vote against the bill, leaders of both parties privately concede. The majority of the GOP conference loathes stopgap funding bills, called continuing resolutions or CRs. A short-term CR a year ago led to the ouster of Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
That means the GOP majority will rely on Democratic support to fund the government for the seventh time in the past year.
“Congress is now on a bipartisan path to avoid a government shutdown that would hurt everyday Americans,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. “House Democrats will continue to solve problems for hardworking American taxpayers and deliver real results.”
The legislation extends federal funding at current rates until Dec. 20. It includes an additional $232 million to boost security around the presidential election after agents thwarted a recent suspected assassination attempt on Trump, and it green-lights faster spending from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to aid natural disaster victims.
The bill represents Plan B for Johnson – days after he told GOP leaders in a closed-door meeting that “there is no Plan B.” The speaker originally preferred a six-month funding bill that would push annual spending bills into March 2025, giving the next president influence in the debate. It also included language to require proof of citizenship for federal voter registration.
Noncitizen voting is already illegal in federal elections, and cases of voter fraud committed by noncitizens are exceedingly uncommon.
Johnson put that legislation on the House floor last week, but 14 Republicans from across the party’s ideological spectrum joined with nearly all Democrats to reject it.
The framework would have prevented a massive end-of-year spending bill, called an “omnibus,” that GOP lawmakers sought to avoid at nearly all cost. And Johnson’s new plan could yield the same result, lawmakers say.
The new CR would expire on Dec. 20. If negotiators from the House drag their feet or are unable to reach an annual spending agreement with the Senate, Johnson could tee up another stopgap spending bill that extends past the inauguration.