Johnson Sets Up Doomed Vote on Funding Bill

House Speaker Mike Johnson announced Tuesday that he plans to go ahead with a floor vote on a continuing resolution that would fund the government for the first six months of the new fiscal year, which starts on October 1. The vote on the CR — which is paired with the SAVE Act, a controversial piece of legislation that would require proof of citizenship to vote — is now scheduled for Wednesday, a week after a previously scheduled vote that Johnson canceled amid concerns that the package would fail.

Johnson spent the last week trying to build support for the bill, but a handful of Republicans and virtually all Democrats continue to express opposition to the package, raising significant doubts about whether it can pass.

“We'll see what happens. I really hope we can do it,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday. “I'm not having any alternative conversations. That's the play, it's an important one, and I'm going to work around the clock to get it passed.”

Some Republicans in the House made it clear that their minds are already made up. “Speaker Johnson is fake fighting by attaching a bright shiny object (that he will later abandon) to a bill that continues our path of destructive spending,” Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, said on social media. “I’m a hell no.”

Even if the speaker can find a way to muscle the bill through the House, it will go nowhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Johnson said Tuesday afternoon that he was also considering adding new funding for the Secret Service to the package, although he seemed skeptical of that option, saying he didn’t want to “just throw more money at a broken system.”

Eying the alternatives: With Johnson refusing to discuss how he might proceed if the CR fails, there is growing concern that lawmakers could stumble into a government shutdown in two weeks. Democrats and some Republicans are pushing for a three-month CR that jettisons the SAVE Act, and that approach could end up being the last-minute alternative that prevents a shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that Johnson’s plan is “unworkable” and called on him to abandon it. “At this point in the process, the only way we can prevent a harmful government shutdown is by both sides working together to reach a bipartisan agreement,” Schumer said.

‘Beyond stupid’: Republicans in the Senate also expressed concerns. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky warned against allowing funding to lapse. “The one thing you cannot have is a government shutdown,” he told reporters. “It would be politically beyond stupid for us to do that right before the election because, certainly, we'd get the blame.”

McConnell added that he is “for whatever avoids a government shutdown, and that’ll ultimately end up, obviously, being a discussion between the Democratic leader and the speaker of the House as to how to process avoiding government shutdown.”

Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville said the whole process is “becoming a mess,” while Senate Minority Whip John Thune suggested that the upper chamber may have to take the reins from the House soon. “If they don’t get something by the end of the week,” he told reporters, “the game changes.”