Politics

Speaker Mike Johnson’s six-month government funding plan failed on the House floor Wednesday amid yet another rebellion within the House Republican conference over spending.
The collapse, which was expected, follows a weeklong effort to shore up support for Johnson’s stopgap, which would leave federal agencies with largely static budgets through March 28. It also included legislation that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote, known as the SAVE Act. GOP leaders pulled the package from the floor last week amid the same internal party problems, pushing forward with a vote Wednesday despite dim prospects for passage.
Fourteen House Republicans ultimately joined most Democrats to sink Johnson’s stopgap proposal on Wednesday, culminating in a 202-220 vote, with Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) voting present. Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine), Don Davis (D-N.C.) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) were the Democrats who voted for the measure.
Johnson has repeatedly struggled this year to muster enough support to pass GOP funding bills, thanks to many of the same disagreements over spending currently plaguing his conference.
Those dissenting Republicans defied the calls of former President Donald Trump, who weighed in a few hours before the vote, redoubling his demands. “If Republicans don’t get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
Although a government shutdown on Oct. 1 remains unlikely, Johnson and GOP leaders are now left without a fallback plan to stave off a funding lapse in less than three weeks. The failure increases the likelihood that House Republicans will wind up with a three-month stopgap spending bill, free of any divisive policy add-ons. Senate appropriators are readying their own spending patch through December but haven’t made a move while Johnson sorts through his options.
“I assume that if [House Republicans] can’t pull it off today, then they pivot to something else and hopefully process it in time for them to vote next week and for us to vote next week and make sure it’s all done before September 30,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said earlier Wednesday.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), a senior Republican appropriator, said it would be wise to have a backup plan, adding that he would support a stopgap into December — the option endorsed by some Republicans, Hill Democrats and the White House.
“There always needs to be a Plan B and a Plan C because we don’t want to shut the government down,” he said, adding, “We have another chamber we’ve got to satisfy as well.”
Once again, Johnson finds himself in the likely position of having to rely on Democrats to shepherd must-pass spending legislation through the House, as he did back in March with passage of two fiscal 2024 government funding packages. Some conservatives have said they’re unwilling to support a short-term spending patch, no matter what.
“We do not need today’s vote,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democratic appropriator in the House, who said the lower chamber could have passed a “clean” stopgap through December last week. “But we’ll go through this ritual.”
Republican appropriators left a meeting with Johnson on Tuesday night saying they’re in lockstep with the speaker, supporting his six-month plan paired with the SAVE Act. But privately, they’ve been urging Johnson to call a vote on a so-called continuing resolution through December, stressing that the six-month option is untenable, especially for the military.
Spending leaders on both sides of the aisle also want the stopgap to buy only enough time to wrap up fiscal 2025 government funding talks by the end of the calendar year, leaving a clean slate for a new administration and the next Congress in January.
“The goal is to make sure that the speaker has as much leverage as possible,” said Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.), a senior Republican appropriator, before meeting with Johnson on Tuesday night. “A short-term CR is what I’d like to get for him, for the Republicans.”
Lawmakers are also weighing add-ons to the stopgap spending bill for agencies and programs that can’t limp along on flat budgets in the coming months. That includes disaster aid and a potential funding boost for the Secret Service following two failed assassination attempts on former President Donald Trump, although some lawmakers are skeptical that more money will address the agency’s needs.
There’s bipartisan agreement, however, on the need for language allowing the Secret Service to spend money at a faster rate.
Jennifer Scholtes and Joe Gould contributed to this report.
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The Secret Service on Wednesday briefed members of a bipartisan House task force on Sunday’s apparent second attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump — with leadership of the panel praising the agency’s handling of the Florida incident.
Reps. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), the chair of the panel, and Jason Crow (D-Colo.), the task force’s top Democrat, said they believed the Secret Service had made adjustments and that Trump on Sunday received a level of security with was “commensurate” with what a president would receive.
“It’s our understanding that after July 13 that President Biden ordered the Secret Service to provide the same level of security to both Vice President [Kamala] Harris and to former President Trump that would be a presidential level security — commensurate with what the president would receive — and that that security is being provided,” Crow said, though he caveated that beyond a security “package” there are other levels of security that inherently travel with the president.
Kelly echoed that, adding that lawmakers were told during their briefing that the Secret Service had “made adjustments” and that the agency’s “awareness is heightened.”
It’s the first briefing with the Secret Service for the full task force since Sunday’s apparent assassination attempt in Florida. The task force has also requested a briefing with the FBI.
“It’s incumbent upon us to look everywhere we can,” Kelly added.
The task force was established earlier this year to investigate the July 13 assassination attempt at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. But Speaker Mike Johnson said this week that the scope of the task force, which was narrowly crafted, will be expanded by the House to include the latest incident. That is likely to take a House vote unless they can get consent to skip that step.
Beyond the briefing, Kelly said that the task force is talking about going to West Palm Beach for a site visit. Though the whole task force has not scheduled a trip, POLITICO first reported on Tuesday night that individual members of the panel are planning trips down to Florida.
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