WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Wednesday defeated their own plan to avert a government shutdown at the end of the month, with the party divided over the length of a short-term funding bill and what, if anything, should be attached to it.
It was an embarrassing blow to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who had yanked the same funding package off the floor last week amid growing GOP defections, only to watch it collapse on Wednesday in a vote that seemed doomed from the start.
The vote was 202-220 with two members voting present. In all, fourteen Republicans voted against the package, and three Democrats — Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Don Davis of North Carolina — voted for it.
Thirteen days before money runs out for the federal government, there is still no bipartisan plan to stave off a shutdown. While the GOP-led House could try again, the focus now likely shifts to the Senate, where leaders in both parties agree a shutdown would be disastrous weeks before the election.
Johnson’s plan called for extending funding at current spending levels for six months, through March 2025, and linking it with the SAVE Act, Donald Trump-backed legislation requiring that people show proof of citizenship to register to vote.
A GOP-only funding bill was always going to be a heavy lift for Johnson given Republicans’ razor-thin majority and the fact that a number of GOP lawmakers — a mix of fiscal conservatives and defense hawks — had vowed for days to tank it.
Democrats want a “clean” three-month funding patch with nothing attached, and virtually all voted no on the Johnson plan. Many oppose the SAVE Act, noting that it is already illegal, and rare, for noncitizens to vote.
GOP opponents were comprised of some unusual bedfellows. Some conservatives said they never vote for stopgap funding bills, known as continuing resolutions, or CRs, while Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., has warned that half a year is too long for military spending to remain stagnant.
That would be “devastating” to the Pentagon, the chairman told NBC News before the vote.
Other GOP defections included Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado; Matt Gaetz and Cory Mills, both of Florida; Nancy Mace of South Carolina; and Matt Rosendale of Montana.
But the overwhelming majority of rank-and-file Republicans backed Johnson’s move, saying holding the vote would put lawmakers on record.
“I think it’s good to put it on the floor, let people know who the people are that support it and don’t,” Rep. Warren Davidson, of Ohio, said earlier Wednesday. “I think that’s more important to call the vote, let the record show who stands where. Everyone.”
Davidson, who was ousted in July from the far-right House Freedom Caucus, lamented that Republicans have failed to unify behind a plan weeks before the election. “It’s a combination of bedwetters who won’t fight for anything,” he said, “and purists who won’t fight for anything unless it’s perfect.”
Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, has loomed large in the funding fight. Hours before the vote, Trump reiterated his message that Republicans should shut down the government unless the SAVE Act becomes law.
“If Republicans don’t get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, making the baseless claim that tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants will vote in the upcoming election.
“Only American Citizens should be voting in our Most Important Election in History, or any Election! A Vote must happen BEFORE the Election, not AFTER the Election when it is too late,” Trump added. “BE SMART, REPUBLICANS, YOU’VE BEEN PUSHED AROUND LONG ENOUGH BY THE DEMOCRATS. DON’T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN.”
After the vote, Johnson met with reporters and defended his strategy but declined to share what his next play call would be.
“The play that we ran tonight was the right play. It’s the right play for the American people. It’s the one they demand and deserve,” Johnson said just off the House floor, using his favorite football metaphors.
“We have two very important objectives right now. Congress has an obligation to fund the government. Congress has an obligation to ensure that our elections are secure, fair and free. This vote tonight could have accomplished both. I’m very disappointed that it didn’t pass.”
The government is slated to shut down at 12:01 a.m. Oct. 1 unless Republicans and Democrats can reach a deal on short-term funding.
That won’t include the speaker’s plan, which is dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate and faces a veto threat from President Joe Biden.
Instead, the likely next step will be Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., bringing to the floor a clean CR, funding the government past the election into December. That would buy time for bipartisan negotiators to strike a longer-term funding deal during the lame-duck session for fiscal year 2025 — if a short-term bill can pass the House.
“Plan B’s always been a clean CR,” Rep. John Duarte, R-Calif., said of the need to eventually pass a short-term patch.
With the Nov. 5 general election just 48 days away, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is warning that a shutdown would be politically devastating for the GOP.
“One thing you cannot have at the government shutdown would be politically beyond stupid for us to do that right before the election,” McConnell said Tuesday, “because certainly we’d get the blame.”
House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said after Wednesday’s meeting that he had complete faith in Johnson figuring out how to avert a shutdown, noting the speaker reached a funding deal earlier this year with Schumer for the current fiscal year.
“At the end of the day, if he ever wanted to shut down the government, he had a lot of opportunities to do that,” Cole said. “Since he’s been speaker, he’s never let it happen. I don’t think he ever will.”
Former House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro, now the top Democrat on the panel, said she hopes bipartisan negotiators can now sit down and hammer out a clean funding bill to keep the lights on.
“I think we’re going to get to where we need to go because we have to,” DeLauro, D-Conn., said. “We need people who have an understanding of what a shutdown means. And I think that [Republicans] will figure out that it is politically devastating.”
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