House Republicans have released their proposed funding patch that includes legislation requiring proof of citizenship to vote and postpones a final decision on government spending until next year, formally setting up a battle with the Democrat-led Senate.
The continuing resolution, a congressional term for legislation that mostly preserves the current level of government funding until lawmakers pass new spending bills, makes good on Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to pair the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act with a funding bridge that extends until March 28, 2025.
“Today, House Republicans are taking a critically important step to keep the federal government funded and to secure our federal election process,” said Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, in a statement. “Congress has a responsibility to do both, and we must ensure that only American citizens can decide American elections.”
The House Rules Committee is slated to consider the measure on Monday, meaning that a floor vote on the bill by the middle of next week is most likely.
But Mr. Johnson may have difficulty pushing the partisan bill through the House because of the addition of the SAVE Act.
Though the voting measure passed through the House earlier this summer with the aid of five Democrats, most on the left side of the aisle consider the legislation to be a “poison pill” that they will not support. It has also gone nowhere in the Democrat-led Senate, and faces a veto threat from the White House.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, and Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray, Washington Democrat, said in a joint statement that Mr. Johnson was making the “same mistake” as former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who pushed an ultra-conservative stopgap bill last year that was ultimately shot down by House Republicans.
“If Speaker Johnson drives House Republicans down this highly partisan path, the odds of a shutdown go way up, and Americans will know that the responsibility of a shutdown will be on the House Republicans’ hands,” they said.
Republicans also may be leery of supporting the stopgap funding due to the SAVE Act, largely because it could be seen as a messaging exercise to put Democrats in a tight spot ahead of the Nov. 5 election that, if it fails, could lead to a politically costly partial government shutdown for the GOP.
While the stopgap measure largely keeps the spending levels that were set in 2024 in place, it does include boosts to programs that have been depleted, such as $10 billion to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and paves the way with $1.95 billion for contracts to continue the Virginia Class Submarine program. The bill does not envision spending cuts.
It also includes millions for the impending presidential inauguration and related security costs, among others.
Typically, a stopgap funding bill would expire in early December and is followed by a colossal spending package known as an omnibus that crams each of the dozen spending bills into thousands of pages of legislative text.
Republicans have been averse to repeating that cycle, but have struggled to pass spending legislation for individual Cabinet agencies this year, and have managed to move only five after the remaining bills were bogged down by inter-party squabbles.
Hardline conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus, who also pushed for the SAVE Act to be attached to a stopgap bill, floated the idea of a funding patch that goes into next year long before the play call was made by GOP leadership.
Their argument was that if former President Donald Trump wins, and the GOP flips the Senate and maintains control of the House, they could have a much larger impact on government funding than if they stuck to the typical schedule.
The funding patch comes on the heels of a separate supplemental package introduced by the House GOP on Friday that would partially cover the VA’s expected $15 billion shortfall.
That bill, sponsored by Rep. Mike Garcia, California Republican, would provide an additional $3 billion for the remainder of fiscal year 2024 following warnings from VA officials that the agency would run out of money for its benefits programs before this fiscal year was up on Sept. 30, and predicted to overspend by roughly $12 billion in fiscal year 2025.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.