Washington — House Republicans will quickly pass a short-term spending bill after bypassing the House Rules Committee as the bipartisan measure to keep government open faced opposition from the panel’s conservative members.
House Republicans are expected to bring the quarterly funding bill to a vote under a procedure known as suspension of the rules, meaning it would require a two-thirds majority to pass. It puts House Speaker Mike Johnson in a position where he is, once again, dependent on Democrats to pass legislation.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Republican from Louisiana, said the bill is expected to come to a vote on Wednesday.
The House Rules Committee was scheduled to vote on whether to approve the measure for a floor vote Monday night, but scrapped the rule vote after Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said they would not support it. If the measure had gone to a floor vote under a rule, it would have needed a simple majority to pass.
“Republicans need Democrats to keep government open,” said Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the committee’s top Democrat.
Conservatives in the House of Representatives have been pushing the House for months to pass the 12 individual budget bills that would fund the government. The short-term bill, they argue, would allow Congress to pass a massive spending bill, a so-called “omnibus,” by the end of the year as lawmakers scramble to get out of Washington for the holidays.
“I would encourage people not to vote for this,” Massie said. “Why would we want to set up a lockdown crisis the week before Christmas? Why would we want to set up a lockdown crisis next spring anyway? We shouldn’t be doing that. We should be funding the whole thing for a year.”
Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, unveiled the latest plan Sunday after the House of Representatives last week rejected his first, which combined a six-month funding bill with a measure requiring proof of citizenship to vote.
The new plan would fund the government at current levels through Dec. 20, delaying the fight over spending until after the November elections. But it also risks ruining lawmakers’ December holiday if they can’t reach a new deal to extend funding into next year.
In a letter to colleagues on Sunday, Johnson said the three-month measure was “the only option left”.
“Our legislation will be a very limited, bare-bones one [continuing resolution] “Only those extensions that are absolutely necessary are included,” he wrote, adding that it prevents “the Senate from saddling us with a bill that is overloaded with billions in new spending and unrelated provisions.”
While continuing resolutions typically do not change funding levels, the quarterly bill includes about $230 million in additional funding for the Secret Service, following a second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. The ballot measure that was part of the six-month funding legislation, which Democrats opposed, is no longer attached.
“While this is not the solution any of us prefer, it is the most prudent path forward under the current circumstances,” Johnson wrote. “As history has taught us and current polls confirm, shutting down the government less than 40 days before a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice.”
Trump had called for a government shutdown if lawmakers could not pass the voting measure, known as the SAVE Act, even though it was already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections. Johnson reported On Friday, Trump said he may soften his calls for an economic shutdown because the former president “understands the situation we’re in.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, both of New York, praised the bipartisan negotiations that resulted in the funding deal. Schumer said in a statement Sunday that he hoped Congress could pass the legislation this week.
“This agreement could have easily been reached weeks ago, but Speaker Johnson and the Republicans in the House of Representatives chose to listen to Donald Trump’s partisan demands instead of working with us from the beginning,” Schumer said on the Senate floor on Monday.
Nikole Killion and
contributed to this report.
