GOP opposition appears to doom Speaker Johnson’s initial plan to avert shutdown

Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) opening bid to avert a government shutdown appears doomed to fail in the House this week amid widespread — and growing — Republican opposition, thwarting the top lawmaker’s hopes of the proposal squeezing Democrats in both chambers.

At least six GOP lawmakers announced that they will vote against Johnson’s plan — which pairs a six-month continuing resolution (CR) with a Trump-backed bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote — more than the number needed to tank the effort. If all Democrats vote no, Republicans can only afford to lose four of their members, assuming full attendance.

The mounting Republican opposition is putting Johnson in a bind: caught between a restive right flank pushing for the package that combines the lengthy CR with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, moderates concerned about the political implications of a shutdown threat so close to the election, and GOP defense hawks sounding the alarm about how the half-year stopgap would affect Pentagon funding.

Johnson, however, is digging in his heels on the CR-plus-SAVE Act, vowing to plow ahead with the legislation despite the White House promising that President Biden would veto it and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) planning to bring up an alternative “clean” stopgap.

“There is no fallback position,” Johnson told reporters in the Capitol on Monday. “This is a righteous fight. This is what the American people demand and deserve.”

Opposition, however, is threatening to derail his plans.

The chorus of concerns that emerged publicly Monday night was headlined by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the chair of the House Armed Services Committee, who said he was opposed to the spending plan because of the impact it would have at the Department of Defense.

“Six months are terrible for defense,” Rogers said. Asked if other members of the Armed Services panel would join him in opposition, he responded: “I hope so.”

Republican Reps. Matt Rosendale (Mont.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Cory Mills (Fla.), Tim Burchett (Tenn.) and Jim Banks (Ind.) have also publicly said that they will not support the CR-plus-SAVE Act, mounting pressure on Johnson in the government funding negotiations.

“I’m not going to vote to extend bloated spending for six more months and grow the national debt trillions of dollars more,” said Banks, who is running for Senate. “So it’s an easy no vote for me.”

Some of those Republicans are warning that the opposition is likely to grow. Mills — who called deficit spending “the existential threat” to American democracy and suggested the SAVE Act portion of the package was “messaging at its finest” — said “quite a few” more Republicans are planning to vote no.

Some of that opposition may come from moderate Republicans, who have expressed skepticism about the plan from the beginning. A source familiar with the matter told The Hill that a “handful” of moderates are withholding their votes on the package until they hear what Johnson’s plan B is.

One moderate Republican — who characterized themself as “undecided” or a “lean no” — told The Hill “I’m not comfortable with the plan right now,” while also zeroing in on Johnson not detailing what the backup proposal would be.

“It’s always good to know what the follow-on plans are,” the GOP lawmaker said. “There was an analogy that was made on one of these big calls that said ‘Hey, when you go into combat, you don’t plan for failure.’ But that’s actually not true. When you go into combat, you actually do go into failure. You have contingency plans, you know, A through Z if you need to, to make sure that you’re successful.”

“We have step one, which is put this thing up, and we know what step three is gonna end up being — clean CR or a government shutdown — so I don’t understand what that middle section looks like,” the lawmaker added. “That’s what I’m waiting to hear conveyed. I think we owe it to the voters to understand the dynamics here.”

The moderate Republican needled Johnson for his comments earlier in the day that “there is no fallback position,” saying “the only inference of that is that your next step is to shut the government down.”

“I can’t get behind that,” they added.

Much of the public opposition, meanwhile, is coming from fiscal hawks who are opposed to extending government funding in general, and are reluctant to change that position for a bill that appears destined to fail.

“I haven’t supported a CR since I arrived here, and I don’t intend to start now,” Rosendale told reporters. “I think it’s a crutch that’s been abused by Congress for many, many years. And they … haven’t completed their work to deliver the 12 appropriations bills, as per the Budget Act of 1974.”

Some of the fiscal hawks are wrestling with their vote.

Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) said he was undecided, and that while likes the SAVE Act, he has never voted for a CR. Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) also said he was undecided due to unknowns about the total cost of the stopgap.

The skepticism from the likes of Crane, Rosendale, and Self is notable given they are all members of the House Freedom Caucus, which had put out an official position advocating for a stopgap into 2025 with the SAVE Act attached.

One hope among advocates of the plan was to tee up attacks on Democrats on opposing the noncitizen voting issue; five House Democrats voted in favor of the stand-alone House bill earlier this year. Democrats, though, counter that it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote and express worries about the requirements burdening eligible voters.

Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), who stepped down as chair of the House Freedom Caucus after he lost his primary, would normally be part of the group of hard-line conservatives against any kind of stopgap. But Good is supporting the bill with the hopes of averting an end-of-year omnibus spending bill that is more favorable to Democratic priorities and policies, hoping former President Trump could sign more favorable spending bills into law if he wins the presidency.

“I think it is worth trying to avoid a CR into the lame-duck and then an omnibus in December. … I think that would be far worse,” Good said. “So I’m willing to try this path to avoid that.”

Some members are not being explicit in their positions. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), another Freedom Caucus member, said he knew how he was going to vote but declined to reveal that position because he had not yet informed leadership.

Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, said “I don’t shut down government” when asked about his position on the CR. Asked if that means he would vote in favor of the bill, he repeated the statement.

And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who noted she has never voted for a CR, also said it is “pointless” to vote for the measure without a clear vision of next steps — but that she wanted to talk to Johnson before saying if she would vote yes or no.

“What is Speaker Johnson going to do? Is he willing to fight for this?” Greene said. “And if he’s not willing to fight for it, why? Why would we vote for it?”

Mike Lillis and Aris Folley contributed.

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