Rebeka Zeljko
Over a dozen Republicans voted alongside 206 Democrats Wednesday to block Speaker Mike Johnson’s revived funding just a week after he originally pulled the bill from the floor due to lack of support.
Johnson’s continuing resolution failed in the House 202-220 with 14 Republicans voting to block the funding bill. The CR was originally set to be voted on last week, but was pulled by the speaker the day of due to pushback from his Republican colleagues who cited fiscal concerns about the bill.
“There is nothing more bipartisan in this town than the appropriators and the defense contractors showing up to screw the American people,” a senior Republican aide told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “That is truly the last bipartisan effort in this town.”
“We understand the frustration with CRs — too often they are just an excuse to kick the can down the road,” Republican Rep. Michael Cloud of Texas wrote in a Daily Caller News Foundation op-ed. “But faced with the certainty of a CR or the disaster of an omnibus that no doubt will include provisions designed to hamstring a Trump presidency, we choose the path that best preserves our ability to fight for conservative principles and policies.”
Johnson abruptly pulled the CR last week the day of the scheduled vote in order to “build consensus” within the party before he eventually reintroduced the funding bill on Wednesday.
“I want any member of Congress, in either party, to explain to the American people why we should not ensure that only US citizens are voting the US.,” Johnson said during the press conference. “We’re going to work on that issue around the clock, because we have an obligation to be able to do it, and that’s what the fight is.”
“People have concerns about all sorts of things,” Johnson continued. “That’s how the process works, and sometimes it takes a little more time.”
Republicans like Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio attribute the bill’s failure to party “purists,” as well as representatives who “won’t fight for anything.”
“You’ve got a kind of what I sort of informally call the surrender caucus,” Davidson told Fox News. “There’s no formal designation of who that is. But it’s a combination of, bedwetter who won’t fight for anything. And purists who won’t fight for anything unless it’s perfect. So they should work at think tanks.”
“So because of that coalition, what ends up happening is, you know, deals keep getting cut with Democrats and everything that gets funded by Congress turns left,” Davidson continued. “I think we’re likely to see another, surrender now with a hollow promise to fight later trotted out. I will gladly fight alongside any of my colleagues. But not on the surrender plan.”
Many of these “purists” opposed the funding bill for fiscal reasons.
“A CR is nothing more than a crutch that Congress has learned they’re able to use to hide from making difficult decisions and casting the difficult votes that we need in order to rein in this out of control spending,” Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana told the DCNF.
“I refuse to be a thespian in the Speaker’s failure theater,” Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said in a Monday post on X ahead of the vote. “The 6 month continuing resolution with the SAVE Act attached is an insult to Americans’ intelligence. The CR doesn’t cut spending, and the shiny object attached to it will be dropped like a hot potato before passage.”
The “shiny object” in question is the SAVE Act, an election integrity measure Johnson attached that would require proof of citizenship for voter registration. The SAVE Act, which was spearheaded by Republican Rep. Chip Roy, passed the House in July with five Democrats defecting and voting alongside 216 Republicans in support of the bill.
Some Republicans said that attaching the SAVE Act is redundant as it has already passed the House.
“The SAVE Act has already come through the House,” Rosendale told the DCNF. “I supported it. And all the Democrats went on record at the time on where they were on allowing or disallowing illegal aliens to vote in our elections. So, I mean, that’s that. It’s already been established.”
Vulnerable Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Donald Davis of North Carolina, Jared Golden of Maine, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez voted to pass the bill.
Reservations about Johnson’s CR even extends to vulnerable Republicans, who worry it would increase the probability of a government shutdown and risk their chance of reelection.
Johnson’s funding bill was disavowed early on by Democratic leadership and have even signaled that they’re willing to risk a government shutdown over it because of the attached SAVE Act.
House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said the CR was “unserious and unacceptable” on Sept. 9, and the White House confirmed later that day that President Joe Biden would veto the bill should the House and the Senate pass it.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also criticized Johnson’s funding bill in a letter from Sept. 8.
“Democrats support a CR to keep the government open,” Schumer said. “As I have said before, the only way to get things done is in a bipartisan way. Despite Republican bluster, that is how we’ve handled every funding bill in the past, and this time should be no exception. We will not let poison pills or Republican extremism put funding for critical programs at risk.”
On the other hand, former President Donald Trump called on Republicans to shut down the government if the CR with the attached SAVE Act doesn’t go through.
“If Republicans in the House, and Senate, don’t get absolute assurances on Election Security, THEY SHOULD, IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, GO FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on last week. “THE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO “STUFF” VOTER REGISTRATIONS WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS. DON’T LET IT HAPPEN – CLOSE IT DOWN!!!”
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