Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday he plans to hold a House vote next on a stopgap spending measure, one that would likely fund the government through the November midterm elections.
The move is an opening bid in what could become a contentious partisan fight ahead of the end of the federal fiscal year on Sept. 30. Johnson has been privately trying to convince President Donald Trump to back the stopgap in a bid to provoke a confrontation with Democrats, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Democrats spurred a record-long government-wide shutdown last fall and an even longer shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security this spring. Republican believe another shutdown fight could work to their benefit ahead of the midterms, the people said.
But Republicans face internal complications passing any funding bill. Many GOP lawmakers are demanding any must-pass bill that emerges from the House needs to also include the SAVE America Act, the Republican elections bill that has languished in the Senate for months, and leaders have yet to decide what to do.
Johnson declined to comment on whether the elections measure would be attached to the spending punt, which would complicate its path in the Senate.
“Well, we haven’t decided all that yet,” Johnson said. “The SAVE America Act is the No. 1 priority for us, and we’re going to attach it to everything that makes sense. So we’ll have to see.”
While Democrats have refused to support previous GOP-written stopgap bills during President Donald Trump’s second term, it’s not obvious the party would roundly reject a clean extension of current funding.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a senior appropriator who is expected to become the No. 2 party leader next Congress, said it made sense to punt funding till after the election.
“This is around the time of year where everyone realizes we’re not going to get our appropriations bill by the end of the federal fiscal year end, so I think we should do the adult thing, which is to punt into the lame duck,” he said. “That is very standard, and we should just get it done in a businesslike fashion.”
Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.
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