Behind closed doors, Johnson sounds a cautious note on SNAP

Speaker Mike Johnson privately conceded this week that Republicans may not succeed in further slashing the nation’s massive food assistance program for low-income Americans, according to two GOP lawmakers present at a closed-door meeting with Johnson.

Shrinking the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is a top priority for hard-right conservatives and until now has been a priority of Johnson’s. Backing off some of the House GOP’s most severe plans for the program sets up a potential clash with some of Johnson’s fellow Republicans who are pushing the new speaker to secure steep new restrictions and spending cuts across SNAP in the upcoming farm bill reauthorization.

Johnson made the remarks during a meeting Tuesday with the centrist-leaning Republican Governance group, according to the GOP lawmakers, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations.

A wide range of GOP members facing tough reelection bids have suggested they won't support significant new efforts to pare back SNAP this Congress, after Republicans secured additional work requirements for recipients in the debt ceiling deal with President Joe Biden in May. The brewing intraparty battle could squeeze Republicans’ most vulnerable members who won competitive districts to help the House GOP clinch its majority.

According to the two lawmakers, Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.), one of 18 House Republicans facing a tough reelection in a district Biden won, told Johnson during the Tuesday meeting that he saw those new SNAP restrictions as the limit for how far Republicans could go to pare back SNAP this Congress.

Johnson, in response, acknowledged that might end up being the case. He indicated the intensely negotiated SNAP changes in the debt agreement had been the consensus position among the various House GOP factions, according to the lawmakers.

A spokesperson for Johnson did not respond to an inquiry. In response to a request for comment, Molinaro said in a statement that he was “happy” with the “progress” Republicans have made with SNAP, while they’ve also “recognized that in a bipartisan government we would need to get buy-in from Democrats and Republicans.”

Time is running out before a year-end cliff for farm bill programs, the majority of which expire at the beginning of 2024. The massive package funds programs for the agriculture industry, food aid and rural America. Ag state lawmakers are now pushing for a short-term extension of the 2018 farm bill while they hash out the details of the new one.

Johnson’s admission this week, not only acknowledges the political challenges in his own disparate conference, but also the reality of a Democratic-majority Senate. Democrats in the upper chamber who are “hell-bent” on blocking any new GOP restrictions to food aid this Congress, according to aides.

In May, Johnson, then vice chair of the House GOP conference, acknowledged that very political challenge. He told reporters the SNAP restrictions Republicans had negotiated in the debt agreement “would not have passed through a Chuck Schumer controlled Senate on their own.”

Despite those warnings, a swath of hard-line House Republicans are still pressing Johnson to deliver what they’re billing as conservative wins on SNAP.

Rep. Eric Burlison, a first-term Republican from Missouri and a member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, said he recently expressed concern to the new speaker that key Republicans, including some drafting the farm bill, are less willing to push steeper SNAP restrictions that will trigger backlash from Democrats, and which could ultimately sink the House’s farm bill.

Burlison also said he and other Republicans pressing for steeper SNAP changes told as much to House Agriculture Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) and his team.

“If they want to pass it without my vote, that's fine,” Burlison said. “But if they want my vote, then I'm asking that they consider [my] perspective.”