When Congress returns to the Capitol next week, lawmakers will have to finalize and pass a stopgap spending bill by the end of the month — and while neither party really wants to be blamed by voters for having federal agencies shuttered just weeks before the election, the path to avoiding a government shutdown now looks likely to involve considerable political drama.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is reportedly planning to pursue a partisan approach promoted by the conservative House Freedom Caucus and former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee. He is apparently set to bring up a continuing resolution, or CR, that would fund the government into March 2025, at levels below what Democrats want — and would also attach the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which requires proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote in federal elections. It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in those elections. Five Democrats helped House Republicans pass that bill in July, but it went nowhere in the Senate. Democratic leaders see the legislation as a nonstarter and worry that it could result in eligible citizens being purged from voter rolls.
The Freedom Caucus earlier this month called for the SAVE Act to be attached to the stopgap spending bill. Trump last week publicly urged House and Senate Republicans try to win some concessions in government funding talks and said that he would “shut down the government in a heartbeat” if the SAVE Act isn’t included in the bill.
“They ought to focus on borders and elections, and if you can’t get the borders right and if you can’t get the elections right, they ought to close it up, just close it up and let it sit,” Trump told The Monica Crowley Podcast, hosted by a former member of his administration. “If they don’t get these bills, they should close it down and Republicans should not approve it.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office has been working to get House conservatives to drop their demands on the voting bill because the measure would be dead on arrival in his chamber, Axios reported last week. “In a recent meeting with other GOP offices about a short-term spending bill strategy, top McConnell staffers argued that adding a non-citizen voting bill would backfire,” Stef W. Kight and Juliegrace Brufke reported. “One fear is such a move would open the door for Democrats to tack on their own voting-related legislation, two GOP aides familiar with the conversation told Axios.”
Democrats also object to the funding levels that House Republicans have proposed, which leave out the “side deals” on spending that were part of an agreement hashed out last year between the Biden White House and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Republicans argue that they don’t have to abide by McCarthy’s deal since he’s no longer speaker.
The bottom line: Johnson appears poised to try to appease Trump and his conservative members on a CR, even if their approach is doomed to fail. That may add obstacles and time pressure to the process of funding the government, but lawmakers may still be likely to avoid a shutdown. “The good news for Johnson here is that he has enough time for Plan B on a CR if and when this effort fails to come together,” Punchbowl News notes.
