House GOP leadership Friday rolled out a plan that involves linking a six-month stopgap, also known as a continuing resolution (CR), with legislation backed by former President Trump and hard-line conservatives that calls for stricter proof-of-citizenship requirements to register to vote.
House Republicans are expected to move quickly on the proposal, but Johnson has already faced some skepticism about the strategy’s chances of success.
Some in the party are warning not to make assumptions about how November’s elections will turn out. And one House Republican told The Hill last week that they worry about leaving a complicated appropriations process to a brand-new Congress.
“You’re going to put brand-new members that just got elected on a really tough vote on an appropriations package when they don’t even understand the appropriations process,” the member said, noting Congress will also have to deal with the debt limit in January.
And still others in the party questioned attaching the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act to a CR, noting such a measure is all but certain to be rejected by the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Meanwhile, two conservatives have already come out against the CR. Johnson can only afford to lose four Republican votes total on any partisan bills.
“If Schumer wanted, he could bring the SAVE Act up for a vote and pass it. But he won’t. He wants illegals to vote in American elections,” Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) said in a post on the social platform X, referring to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
“We should be focusing on passing ALL 12 appropriations bills!” he added.
Others, however, want to see GOP leaders plow forward with the push, particularly after the party struggled to pass more than a handful of its partisan funding bills before leaving for recess in late July amid internal divides over spending policy.
“Republicans can sit around hand-wringing and do their usual claptrap, or they can get on board, unite and then figure out how we’re going to strategize through the next two months,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), lead sponsor of the SAVE Act, told The Hill in an interview ahead of the rollout.
The Hill’s Aris Folley has more here.
