The House is set to vote Tuesday on a plan from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to avoid a government shutdown with a two-tiered spending deadline.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
The House of Representatives is expected to vote Tuesday on a short-term spending bill to avoid a government shutdown. But amid conservative opposition to the stopgap, House Speaker Mike Johnson’s proposal will need to garner significant Democratic support if it hopes to pass.
Government funding is set to run out at the end of the day on Friday, and Johnson’s bill is the only funding measure currently being debated in the House or the Senate. The Tuesday vote will determine the path Congress takes this week in an effort to avoid a shutdown.
The Republican-drafted bill funds four federal agencies through Jan. 19, and the rest through Feb. 2, all at current spending levels. Johnson, R-La., took the unconventional approach of splitting the deadlines for the spending bills in part to appease a bloc of House conservatives who first floated the plan. But the group abandoned their support for the plan because Johnson failed to also include deep spending cuts they have demanded.
The conservative House Freedom Caucus came out against the plan Tuesday morning, writing that it “contains no spending reductions, no border security, and not a single meaningful win for the American people.”
It wasn’t clear that the plan had enough Republican support to survive initial procedural votes. So conference leadership moved to bring the measure to the floor Tuesday with House rules suspended. Any bills considered under suspension of the rules require a two-thirds majority of the House to pass.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Johnson acknowledged conservative concerns, but called his two-step plan an “important innovation” that would avoid a last-minute omnibus bill passed at the end of the year.
“I want to cut spending right now, and I would like to put policy riders on this. But when you have a three vote majority, as we do right now, we don’t have the votes to be able to advance that,” Johnson said. “What we need to do is avoid a government shutdown. Why? Because that would unduly harm the American people. Troops wouldn’t be paid. We know all the effects of that. And so we have to avoid that and we have responsibility to do it.”
Democrats have criticized Johnson’s two-step construction for creating two additional funding deadlines, and therefore two opportunities for a partial government shutdown. But they’ve also signaled openness to supporting the bill, since it would avoid a government shutdown now, ahead of a Friday midnight deadline. The measure also does not include any spending cuts or border provisions that Democrats would oppose.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Tuesday that Democrats “continue to evaluate” Johnson’s proposal. Jeffries, D-N.Y., said he had not found any conservative poison pills or spending cuts in the bill, but has “concerns with the bifurcated deadlines that seemed to be somewhat unprecedented.”
“We’re evaluating the potential adverse impact of that on the American people,” he said.
Rep. Annie Kuster, who chairs the moderate New Dems Coalition, said she is assessing the plan, and wants assurance that Republicans will bring a supplemental aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza to the floor after the stopgap is passed.
“But, look, our people want to keep the government open, and that shouldn’t be this hard,” said Kuster, D-N.H.
Working with Democrats to keep the government open is what triggered the push to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last month. At this point, it does not seem that Johnson will face the same fate.
Rep. Bob Good, a member of the Freedom Caucus who voted to oust McCarthy, told CNN that he does not support Johnson’s plan, but drew distinctions between his actions and McCarthy’s.
“Speaker Johnson has been on the job for what, two, three weeks now,” said Good, R-Pa. “That’s like throwing in a quarterback in the fourth quarter and expecting to make up for three quarters of failure and you’re behind 35-nothing.”