Democrat calls GOP stopgap fight ‘fanatic-on-fanatic violence’

The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday called the Republicans’ stopgap funding fight “fanatic-on-fanatic violence,” calling out his colleagues for not being able to agree on what he said were two extreme views. 

“There’s nothing funny about it, you know, and it is serious business, but it just amuses me that, let’s just call them the extremists within the Republican Party, can’t even decide on how they want to be extreme together. I thought of it as sort of fanatic-on-fanatic violence last night,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said at The Hill’s Future of Defense Summit, which was sponsored by Lockheed Martin.

House Republicans on Wednesday evening shot down their own plan to avoid a government shutdown at the end of September, voting 202-220 on a funding package known as a continuing resolution (CR) that would have extended funding at current spending levels for six months, through March 2025. The bill also included the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, legislation pushed by former President Trump that would require people to show proof of citizenship to register to vote.

“You had one group of people who were insisting that we had to have this ridiculous antivoting law and a six-month CR, and you had another  group of people insisting ‘no we have to dramatically slash the budget.’ They couldn’t even get on the same page,” Smith told The Hill’s editor-in-chief, Bob Cusack.

Fourteen GOP lawmakers voted against the package, including House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.). The outcome was a hit to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who had planned a vote on the same package last week but was forced to pull it off the floor after numerous Republicans voiced their opposition to the legislation. 

The party remains divided over how long the short-term funding bill should last and if anything should be attached to it.

Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), who voted for the package, said concerning next steps, he believes “there’s going to be a convergence of different forces to be. And the question will be, who prevails in that process?”

He predicted that the House will likely end up with a CR “that doesn’t have a whole lot of anomalies,” and will only stretch three months to “probably somewhere in the December time frame, if I had to guess.”

Democrats, meanwhile, want a “clean” three-month CR with no legislation tagged on. All but three voted no on Johnson’s effort; the three yes votes were Reps. Jared Golden (Maine), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.) and Don Davis (N.C.).

At a Wednesday hearing on the National Defense Strategy Commission’s report, which calls for major defense hikes and took place ahead of the vote, Smith urged “anyone who cares about national security” to vote against the CR.

There are now 12 days remaining before a government shutdown.