House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Thursday that Democrats would reject Republican leadership’s plan to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month, calling it “unserious and unacceptable.” The Democratic leader called on moderate Republicans to work in bipartisan fashion to pass a short-term funding bill that would keep federal agencies open.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan would fund the government for six months and would include the SAVE Act, which requires proof of citizenship from people registering to vote. But that proposal has gone over like a lead balloon, and Johnson yesterday postponed a scheduled vote on it in the face of mounting opposition from his own members. Some conservatives oppose the spending levels in the bills, and some oppose all stopgap spending bills. Defense hawks also object to the Johnson bill, warning that a six-month extension of current funding would undermine the military.
“Johnson’s detractors are aplenty — especially inside the House Republican leadership, where the speaker’s seemingly earnest determination is being met quietly with sneers, jeers and head shaking,” Punchbowl News reported.
Former President Donald Trump has likely complicated Johnson’s job by insisting that Congress should approve the Republican voting measure as part of any funding deal and urging GOP lawmakers to allow a shutdown otherwise. Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, suggested in a podcast interview yesterday that Republicans might benefit from picking this fight and threatening a shutdown. “Why shouldn’t we be trying to force this government shutdown fight to get something out of it that’s good for the American people?" he said. "Like, why have a government if it’s not a functioning government?”
With some 18 days to go before the deadline, the path forward on a stopgap spending bill remains uncertain, and Jeffries pinned the uncertainty on far-right Republicans.
“Extreme MAGA Republicans want to shut down the government because they are determined to jam Trump’s Project 2025 down the throats of the American people and enact extreme cuts to veterans, Social Security, and to disaster relief in a manner that will hurt the American people,” he said during a weekly press briefing. “We are simply asking traditional Republicans to partner with House Democrats in a bipartisan way to avoid a Donald Trump-inspired extreme MAGA Republican shutdown. That’s not too much to ask,” Jeffries said, adding that the framework for a deal already exists under the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, which set federal spending levels for fiscal years 2024 and 2025.
Democrats object to pushing off the 2025 spending bills into next year. “We want to get it resolved this calendar year, because that’s the only practical way to meet the needs of the American people,” Jeffries said, citing various funding levels that Democrats want to see adjusted.
Asked if some in his party might accept a shorter-term spending bill that included the SAVE Act, Jeffries said Democrats “have zero interest in enacting any part of Trump’s Project 2025 agenda.”
He again insisted that bipartisanship was the only way forward: “I’m hopeful that House Republican leadership and traditional Republicans will reach that conclusion sooner rather than later so we can get that job done.”
