Without a stopgap funding plan, the government will shut down at the end of the week.
In an effort to avert a government shutdown Saturday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has opted to expedite his stopgap funding proposal for floor consideration Tuesday after it became clear Republicans could not pass it through their narrow and divisive ranks.
Hard-right Republicans were planning to sink a critical procedural hurdle, known as a rule vote, that would have blocked passage of the bill because they were angry that Johnson rejected their request to attach spending cuts, border security provisions or funding for Israel to the proposal. Rather than face an embarrassing defeat — Republicans could lose only three votes if all Democrats voted against the proposal — GOP leaders decided late Monday to instead work to pass the package by suspending the House rules. Using the procedural maneuver, however, requires two-thirds support from the House, meaning Republicans will need help from Democrats to pass the legislation.
Once passed by the House, it is expected to clear the Senate, where both Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) endorsed the two-tiered plan Monday.
Johnson’s decision to circumvent the far right’s concerns comes after he spent weeks engaging with Republicans across the ideologically fractured conference and producing a compromise proposal that left no faction completely satisfied. The speaker adopted hard-liners’ demand to fund some government departments until mid-January and the rest through early February, and paired the two-tiered deadline with centrists’ request to reject the far right’s push for spending cuts and instead extend existing funding levels until early next year.
“My hope was that he was going to listen to everybody and put something out that was a bit of a bitter pill to swallow, but probably something achievable, to go force pressure on the Senate Democrats,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.), who was a proponent of the two-tier approach Johnson adopted but also wanted spending cuts.
