The House plans to vote this week on a bill that would extend federal funding for 12 weeks, heading off a potential government shutdown on October 1 while pushing the battle over 2025 spending levels until after the election.
House Speaker Mike Johnson reached a bipartisan, bicameral agreement over the weekend with Democratic leaders on a continuing resolution that would fund the government at current levels until December 20, with an additional $231 million for the Secret Service to boost protection for presidential candidates and $47 million for election-related expenses. The House is scheduled to take a procedural vote on the measure, known as a CR, on Monday afternoon.
The bill does not include the SAVE Act, a controversial piece of legislation backed by Republicans that would require proof of citizenship to vote. Under pressure from fellow Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, Johnson attempted to pass a six-month funding extension that included the voting measure last week, but the package failed to clear the House.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the stripped-down, bipartisan bill should enable Congress to avoid a shutdown. “If both sides continue to work in good faith, I am hopeful that we can wrap up work on the CR this week, well before the September 30 deadline," Schumer said in a statement Sunday. "The key to finishing our work this week will be bipartisan cooperation, in both chambers.”
Final act of “failure theater”? Some of Johnson’s critics have complained about his inability to pass funding bills that reflect conservative values, including spending cuts and various culture war initiatives, but the narrow Republican majority in the House makes it all but impossible for Johnson to satisfy their demands. Nevertheless, Johnson – who would like to keep his job as speaker if Republicans hold the House in November – pushed ahead with the six-month CR, even though it was doomed from the start given Democratic control of both the Senate and the White House.
In a letter to House Republicans Sunday, Johnson said that since “we fell a bit short of the goal line” on the longer funding bill, a new approach is necessary. “Our legislation will be a very narrow, bare-bones CR including only the extensions that are absolutely necessary.”
Johnson noted that while the short-term funding bill is not what many Republican lawmakers wanted to see, it is the only “prudent” path to take so close to the election, even if some hardliners – including, apparently, Trump – would prefer to shut the government down. “As history has taught and current polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice,” Johnson wrote.
But some of Johnson’s critics haven’t been placated by his effort to appease the hardliners. “I refuse to be a thespian in this failure theater,” Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said earlier this month as he announced his opposition to Johnson’s plan. “This is political theater. I'm going to call out both sides right here. It's all posturing. It's fake fighting. We all know where it ends up.”
Like some of the other Republican lawmakers who have opposed Johnson’s effort, Massie said he wants to see real spending cuts and a balanced budget, rather than the continuing resolution and last-minute omnibus spending bills that Congress typically passes each year. “We've got some good theater. We've got great writers,” he said. “I wish they'd just come up with a new plot. It's the same plot every fiscal year.”
Still, more moderate Republicans said they were happy to avoid the drama of a shutdown showdown so close to the election. “It’s, in my opinion, galactically stupid to do a government shutdown even after an election,” said Rep. Mike Garcia of California, per NBC News. “Before an election, it’s even worse. It’s self-immolating as a party if we do that right before an election.”
What happens next: The House will attempt to approve the bill on an expedited basis, with a possible Senate vote later in the week. Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, chair of the Appropriations Committee, called on lawmakers to push the legislation over the finish line. “This continuing resolution was a bipartisan compromise—let’s get it passed and ensure we avert a needless and disastrous government shutdown,” she said in a statement. “There are so many urgent national priorities that still must be addressed in our full-year funding bills. I will be working closely with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to ensure we get the job done before the end of the year.”
