Just hours into the House’s return from August recess, Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to keep the government open was already falling apart.
Governing funding is set to expire at the end of September, and Johnson is trying to make Republican hard-liners happy while avoiding a shutdown before the election.
But his strategy — pairing a six-month spending extension with a bill that would require proof of citizenship before someone could register to vote — doesn’t seem to be enough for a critical mass of conservatives. And his plan to keep funding levels the same until March, when there’s a new president in office, doesn’t appear to have won over influential Republicans.
In short, Johnson finds himself in a familiar place: without the votes.
His proposal was always likely to fail in the Senate, where Democrats have indicated they would strip the voting provisions and put House Republicans to a choice — a clean continuing resolution or a government shutdown.
But, ideally, Johnson could at least give his plan a vote in the House and put vulnerable Democrats in a tricky political spot. (Five House Democrats have already voted for the proof-of-citizenship requirements, known on Capitol Hill as the SAVE Act.) And, ideally, he’d at least be able to blame the failure to pass the SAVE Act on Senate Democrats.
If Johnson can’t pass the legislation in the House, however, he’ll have no one to blame but himself and his own GOP conference.
As lawmakers returned from a six-week recess Monday night, the Magic 8 Ball answer on the fate of Johnson’s gambit was already becoming clear: outlook not so good.
“I’ve never voted for a CR in six years here, and I don’t plan to stop that trend moving forward,” Rep. Greg Steube told NOTUS.
“As far as I’m concerned, this is nothing more than messaging,” conservative Rep. Cory Mills told reporters Monday night, mentioning that Reps. Thomas Massie and Tim Burchett were also opposing the idea. (Massie called the effort “political theater” — he told NOTUS it was “failure theater” last week — and he said Monday night that the SAVE Act was “just a bright, shiny object that’s going to be taken off later.”)
Other Republicans, the ones who are usually more reliable votes for the GOP agenda, seemed to sense the doomed fate of Johnson’s plan and were jumping on the opposition’s bandwagon to ensure that their conservative credentials would remain intact.
“You can’t be serious about addressing the debt and be passing loaded spending bills like these,” Rep. Jim Banks said Monday night. “So it’s an easy ‘no’ vote for me.”
Then there is a whole other side of Johnson’s math problem, a side that has rarely crossed Johnson but has its own set of issues with the CR. At one point on Monday, Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith threatened to vote no on the plan unless it included a reauthorization for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, according to four sources familiar with the matter. (GOP leaders eventually reached an agreement with Smith, and a TANF reauthorization is likely to be added, two sources said.)
But even if leaders solved Smith’s problem, there was House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers. The Alabama Republican told Punchbowl News he was a no, saying a six-month CR would be bad for the Pentagon — and he said he was encouraging members of his committee to follow suit.
While facing some unexpected defections, Johnson might gain some surprising allies. Among them is perhaps his chief nemesis: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Despite hating CRs, Greene told NOTUS she’s considering this one because of the SAVE Act, though she still managed to take a jab at Johnson.
“Why do we want to be led into battle by a leader that won’t battle?” she asked. “Joe Biden has said that he’ll shut down the government. Chuck Schumer has said that he’ll shut down the government. Is Mike Johnson willing to put up the fight that’s willing to get it across the line?”
Johnson’s willingness to fight — and, indeed, enter a government shutdown — was a real question for Republicans Monday night. Rep. Barry Moore of Alabama said he was leaning toward voting yes, but he emphasized that he wouldn’t be happy if the Senate simply stripped the SAVE Act and Johnson put that version of the legislation up for a vote.
“We need to make sure leadership’s got a plan to stick to the guns on this thing and force Schumer and them to take it up,” Moore said.
Johnson faces problems on the CR just as the questions about his future are becoming more pressing. The election is less than two months away, and vulnerable Republicans believe a government shutdown would be disastrous for their reelection chances. Meanwhile, Johnson likely has to grow the majority — not just keep it — to retain his gavel. And yet, he can’t even convince his conference to go along with a plan that would, at least, save face for him with some of his harshest Republican critics and put pressure on Democrats.
As Johnson searches for a path forward, he’s stuck trying to convince some of his most intractable GOP colleagues to go along with a plan that, at best in their minds, leads to a government shutdown, while also trying to convince those skeptical rank-and-file Republicans that there won’t be a shutdown. He has to convince one section of the conference that this is the best path toward conservative victories on spending, while also convincing another faction that this plan leads to spending plus-ups for Republican priorities like the military.
And he has to win over those lawmakers while not losing any of the fence-sitters.
One of those undecided Republicans is Freedom Caucus member Eli Crane. The Arizona Republican said he was considering voting yes because of the SAVE Act, but noted he also dislikes the legislative tool.
Another Freedom Caucus member, Rep. Keith Self, told NOTUS he hadn’t made up his mind “because there’s a lot of details in it that I’ve not seen in a comprehensive analysis,” but he said attaching the SAVE Act to the legislation was “common sense.”
The problem is, even under the best scenario for Johnson, he’s looking at more disappointment. Even if he can pass the CR with the SAVE Act attached, he will still face another dilemma when the measure comes back from the Senate with the SAVE Act stripped out.
He’s only delayed the pain, not alleviated it.
Although five Democrats voted for the SAVE Act in July, Democratic leadership member Dan Kildee indicated that Democrats might hold back their votes until Republicans put up the votes themselves for Johnson’s plan. When he was asked about his colleagues voting against a measure that some of them had, in effect, already voted for, Kildee suggested those Democratic lawmakers might have other issues with the bill — such as the timeframe of the funding extension — illustrating an old Washington axiom that it’s always easier to explain your opposition than your support.
Still, Rep. Jared Golden — one of the five Democrats who previously supported the SAVE Act — was cagey on whether he would hold his vote back. “I have a past voting record,” he told NOTUS.
But if Johnson’s gambit was designed to put Democrats in a tough spot, it was Republicans who seemed to be withstanding the most pressure.
Vulnerable Rep. David Schweikert acknowledged the political theatrics at work — “this is the dance” — and he suggested he was still figuring out his part in the play.
“Give me a day,” he said. “Remember, I just landed.”