House GOP swerves around conservative opposition for stopgap spending bill

House Republican leaders are changing course on the process for considering a three-month government funding bill, abandoning plans to bring it up through a regular procedural process after opposition from some in the right flank threatened to block it.

Now, the stopgap — which would keep the government funded through Dec. 20 — is expected to hit the floor this week under suspension of the rules, a process that bypasses the need to pass a procedural rule, requires significant support from Democrats to reach the two-thirds support threshold needed for passage, and is abhorred by hard-line conservatives.

It is just the latest hurdle for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Republicans on the government funding legislation, after an initial House GOP gambit on funding failed due to opposition from within their own party last week.

The House Rules Committee convened Monday afternoon to consider a group of measures, including the stopgap, but later in the evening the panel decided to drop the government funding measure from the final bundle of bills packaged together that evening.

“So we’ll bring it up under suspension, which is the way I thought we would to begin with,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the ranking member on the House Rules Committee, said at the end of the hearing Monday.

“You will get your wish,” House Rules Committee Chair Michael Burgess (R-Texas) responded.

The stopgap is poised to sail through the House now that it is being considered under suspension of the rules, with a large number of Democrats and a significant cohort of Republicans expected to back the measure. It will then head to the Senate ahead of the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline.

This week’s vote will cap off the current shutdown showdown in the House, which has caused headaches for the Speaker.

Johnson’s first “play call” in the government funding fight was to pair a six-month continuing resolution (CR) with a measure to require proof of citizenship to register to vote — dubbed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act — which was pushed by former President Trump. That package, to be sure, was never expected to become law because of opposition from Senate Democrats and the White House, but it was intended to be an opening salvo in negotiations.

Johnson, however, never got the chance to make that opening offer because it could not pass through the House. Fourteen Republicans, consisting mostly of fiscal hawks who balk at any kind of continuing resolution, voted against the bill.

Johnson is now working to move a three-month stopgap that excludes the GOP-backed bill and was crafted by leaders in both parties and chambers. The Speaker initially sought to move the legislation through regular order, which requires passage of a procedural rule.

“We try to follow regular process, regular order as much as possible,” Johnson had told reporters earlier in the day of his move to advance the 3-month CR through a rule.

Hours later, however, some hard-line conservatives said they would oppose the procedural rule when it hit the floor as a way to protest the legislation. If the rule failed — a reality that would only require a handful of GOP “no” votes — the House would be unable to debate the bill and vote on final passage. 

Some on the right flank were already vowing to vote against the rule.

“I’m a no,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) told The Hill when asked how he would vote on the rule, pointing to the exclusion of the SAVE Act.

Democrats were highly unlikely to take the unusual step of supporting the procedural vote, even if they supported the stopgap. Rules votes are generally party-line affairs, regardless of how lawmakers intend to vote on the underlying legislation, but conservatives in the House have used them to protest legislation they disagree with.

“It’s not clear that House Republicans have the ability to undertake the basic responsibilities of governing, which should tell the American people all they need to know,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) reportedly told Punchbowl News earlier Monday.

Emerging from a leadership meeting in Johnson’s office earlier Monday evening, Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) said he believes that there would be enough Republican support to pass the Dec. 20 continuing resolution under suspension of the rules.

“People realize, I mean, we’ve got to win an election, and there’s a lot going on right now, and, you know, the world’s on fire,” Hern said, mentioning the need to fund the military.

Politically, the situation is far from ideal for Johnson.

Hard-line conservatives have criticized both Johnson and his predecessor, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), for bringing bills to the floor that got more support from Democrats than Republicans.

McCarthy was also ousted from the Speakership a year ago just after a remarkably similar situation, after he was forced to fast-track a short-term stopgap due to Republicans tanking a partisan option.

Johnson, though, rejected the comparison to McCarthy.

“Very different circumstances,” he told reporters Monday.

Pressed by a reporter who said it was the same play call, Johnson said: “No, it’s not.”