House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that Democrats will reject any short-term spending bill that includes Trump-backed policy provisions or kicks the issue of 2025 spending into next year.
Jeffries noted that Republican leaders in both chambers have already backed legislation, known as the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), that set government spending levels for both fiscal 2024 and 2025. He’s accusing Republicans of walking away from that deal at the risk of a government shutdown.
“What’s the problem? We’ve already reached an agreement,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol. “So it should not be that complicated, and we need to get it resolved in this calendar year.”
Behind Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), House GOP leaders had pushed a stopgap spending package, known as a continuing resolution (CR), that would extend 2024 spending until March 28 — a six-month span demanded by some conservatives in the House GOP conference. The legislation also featured a policy rider, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, requiring proof of citizenship for voting nationwide.
On Wednesday, Johnson was forced to scrap a scheduled vote on that package because it lacked the GOP support to pass.
The bill had met resistance from a number of Republican deficit hawks, who balked at levels of spending they deem to be too high.
Separately, a group of GOP defense hawks also opposed the measure, saying they don’t want to freeze Pentagon spending at 2024 levels over such a long span. They’re urging Johnson to adopt a much shorter CR that would push the debate into the postelection, lame-duck session — a message echoed by Democratic leaders in both chambers.
“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 Thursday.
He warned that the Republican bill would cut billions of dollars from key agencies, threatening veterans’ health care, undermining military readiness and hobbling the Social Security Administration at the expense of senior benefits.
“The only way to avoid that is to resolve the fiscal year 2025 spending agreement in this calendar year,” he said.
As Republican leaders regroup in search of a CR that can pass through the House, Johnson has emphasized that voting integrity language must be a part of any package.
“I want any member of Congress, in either party, to explain to the American people why we should not ensure that only U.S. citizens are voting in U.S. elections,” Johnson told reporters Wednesday.
That demand is also being rejected by Jeffries, who linked the proposal back to Project 2025, a sweeping blueprint of conservative policy priorities designed to guide the next Republican president, and to former President Trump.
“We have zero interest in enacting any part of Trump’s Project 2025 agenda,” Jeffries said.
It’s unclear what will happen next.
Johnson said the internal Republican negotiations will continue through the weekend, but did not forecast any votes on a CR next week. Without congressional action, large parts of the federal government will shut down on Oct. 1.
Jeffries said he’s been “in regular communication” with both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and the Biden administration about a strategy for avoiding a shutdown. And he also discussed the topic briefly with Johnson as the two crossed paths at two unrelated events in the Capitol on Wednesday, though there have been no formal talks.
“The only path forward is a bipartisan one,” Jeffries said. “And 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.”
The House impasse has raised the prospect that the ultimate compromise bill might originate in the Senate, rather than the lower chamber. Jeffries said it’s too early to know.
“That remains to be seen,” he said.