WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson’s strategy to attach a short-term government funding bill to a Donald Trump-backed election overhaul proposal was shelved Monday after a group of conservative rebels vowed to vote against the package.
Without emergency funding, the money will run out and the federal government will close at the end of the month.
Because of the GOP’s razor-thin majority, Johnson, R-La., can afford only four Republican defections if all members vote. At least five Republicans — Cory Mills, of Florida; Matt Rosendale, of Montana; Tim Burchett, of Tennessee; Jim Banks, of Indiana; and Thomas Massie, of Kentucky — say they would not support Johnson’s plan to avert a government shutdown on Sept. 30.
Many other Republicans said they weren’t sure yet.
Johnson is proposing a six-month continuing resolution, or CR, along with the so-called SAVE Act, legislation sponsored by former President Donald Trump that would overhaul voting laws across the country by requiring proof of citizenship to vote. Trump has called on Republicans in Congress to pass the SAVE Act — which Democrats, who control the Senate and the White House, oppose — or face a government shutdown.
Mills criticized Johnson’s strategy as a “farce” and said it would do nothing to secure the southern border.
“If we can’t close the border, I’m in favor of closing the government,” Mills told reporters.
Rosendale said, “Since I got here, I have not supported any CR and I have no intention of doing so now.”
He dismissed concerns that a shutdown could backfire on Republicans, saying he doesn’t think a shutdown will happen in the end.
Asked whether his CR plan would pass the House of Representatives, Johnson replied, “We’ll find out.”
The rising number of defections marked a rocky start for Republicans as lawmakers returned to the Capitol after a six-week summer recess.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has said that Johnson’s plan is dead on arrival in the Senate and that President Joe Biden will veto the package if it ever reaches his desk.
But with the GOP plan headed for defeat in the House, Democrats may not have to kill it. Instead, they’re pushing for a “clean CR” — short-term funding with no strings attached.
“The House Republican CR is simply not serious. It is pure partisan posturing,” Schumer said in a floor speech Monday. “Democrats will do everything in their power to prevent a Republican-engineered shutdown. We are prepared to work on a bipartisan bill that keeps the government open. Any unnecessary provisions that stand in the way of that goal must be set aside.”
Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) predicted that Republicans will pay the price if they shut down the government.
“I hope Republicans have learned their lesson: If they shut down the government, the people will punish them,” Raskin said. “And government shutdowns are an enormously wasteful, extravagant, self-destructive thing to do. … Donald Trump is coaching them to do it.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
