House GOP announces plan to avert looming shutdown

Congressional leaders reached a deal on Sunday to fund the government through Dec. 20, dropping a GOP push to attach a conservative immigration proposal backed by former President Donald Trump. The short-term funding bill is expected to get a vote on the House floor by mid-week as Congress races against a Sept. 30 government shutdown deadline. Last week, 14 Republicans joined with most Democrats to tank Speaker Mike Johnson’s initial plan to fund the government for six months, which included a GOP proposal that required proof of citizenship to register to vote. Unable to pass a funding package on their own, House Republicans quietly pivoted to negotiating with Democrats on Sunday’s short-term bill, known as a continuing resolution or a CR, that would punt the funding fight until after the election. They also stripped it of partisan policies that would threaten bipartisan support needed for passage in the House. Dozens of conservatives are expected to oppose it. “Next week the House will take the initiative and pass a clean, three-month CR to prevent the Senate from jamming us with a bill loaded with billions in new spending and unrelated provisions. Our legislation will be a very narrow, bare-bones CR including only the extensions that are absolutely necessary,” Johnson wrote in a Sunday Dear Colleague letter, a copy of which was obtained by PMG. Though the bill was rolled out by House Republicans, Democratic leaders on the Hill quickly embraced it and touted it as a bipartisan compromise that will avert a shutdown. “Over the past four days, bipartisan, bicameral negotiations have been underway to reach an agreement that maintains current funding through December 20 and avoids a government shutdown a month before the election. … If both sides continue to work in good faith, I am hopeful that we can wrap up work on the CR this week,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement. The newly unveiled bill funds the government largely at current levels through Dec. 20, setting up another round of the high-stakes funding fight just before the holidays. The legislation would provide $231 million to the Secret Service for carrying out protective operations, including those related to the 2024 presidential campaign. But the spending bill links that funding to requirements that the agency hands over a report on its investigation into the July 13 shooting to a House task force and Senate committee investigating the two assassination attempts against Trump. The bill also sets a timeline for DHS to respond to two letters sent by the House task force last month. Appropriators had been in talks with the Secret Service about what additional resources the agency needs after those two apparent assassination attempts, including a July 13 shooting where security failures sparked widespread criticism of the Secret Service. Lawmakers widely predicted that congressional leaders would eventually need to punt the shutdown deadline into later this year and embrace a bipartisan deal. Though Johnson refused for weeks to publicly or privately acknowledge if he had a Plan B in the spending fight, there was a growing expectation that the House would pass a bill to fund the government into December this week. By the time Congress left town at the end of last week, appropriators and members of leadership were already predicting that they were close to a deal to avoid a shutdown. The spending bill will also need to clear the Senate, where conservative demands could drag the chamber into weekend work ahead of Monday’s deadline. Still, Johnson could face real blowback in the House, where his right flank will be watching closely to see if he can get a majority of Republicans to back the bill or if the measure gets more Democratic than Republican votes. The speaker will face an early test on that point. Due to typical House rules and his narrow majority, Johnson will need near-unanimity to bring the spending bill to the floor — meaning he’ll need help from some Republicans who might ultimately vote against it on final passage. If he can’t get that support, he’ll either need to lean on Democrats to help him get over the procedural hurdle or hope the bill can pass a higher two-thirds threshold that would let him leapfrog over his own holdouts entirely. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement that “House Democrats will collectively evaluate the spending legislation in its entirety in advance of its consideration on the Floor.” It all comes at a critical moment for Johnson, who has worked to mend relationships with the right after a heated spending fight earlier this year led to a failed attempt to strip him of the gavel. But his conservative allies worry that the stopgap bill, and the subsequent year-end shutdown battle, will inflame his right flank just as he’s trying to keep the top House spot — assuming Republicans win House control in November. Though Johnson only requires a simple majority of the GOP to become the speaker nominee in that case, he would face a much tougher hurdle in early January, when he will need 218 votes on the House floor. He can’t count on any help from House Democrats, who are expected to unanimously back Jeffries. Johnson was under pressure from some in his right flank, plus Trump, to shut down the government if Democrats wouldn't agree to their immigrant voting bill. But in his letter on Sunday, Johnson made it clear he agrees with many Republicans who have publicly and privately said a shutdown weeks before an election would be politically disastrous. “As history has taught and current polling affirms,” he wrote, “shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice.”

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