The first partisan showdown over an end-of-month government funding deadline is set to take place on the House floor Friday, with a vote on a stopgap to fund the government through Nov. 21.
Republican leaders who crafted the partisan bill aim to set up a repeat of their funding strategy from March: cut Democrats out of the talks, dare Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to force a government shutdown — and hope he will fold as he did before.
House GOP leaders have told their members that they may not return until after Oct. 1 in a bid to jam the Senate Democrats into accepting their package, according to a House GOP leadership source, canceling previously scheduled votes on Sept. 29 and 30. The House is set to be out next week for Rosh Hashanah.
But to achieve that, Republicans will first have to muscle the stopgap through the House with their razor-thin majority — overcoming internal pushback from a handful of spending hawks.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Thursday that he’s confident the package will sail through the lower chamber without a glitch. “We’re going to get this government funded,” he said.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), tasked with wrangling the votes, expressed similar confidence: “We’re going to pass it. Our members understand.”
In the days leading into the vote, at least four Republican lawmakers were threatening to withhold their support.
Democrats, meanwhile, are virtually united in opposing the short-term spending measure, known as a continuing resolution (CR). They’ve decried the bill as an assault on public health care programs, demanding a bipartisan alternative that addresses those concerns, such as extending Affordable Care Act subsidies expiring at the end of the year, and rolling back Medicaid cuts that Republicans passed into law earlier this year.
Emmer dismissed the posture from Democratic leaders and Schumer.
“I think it’s a lot of saber-rattling. It’s about as clean of a CR as you can ever have,” Emmer said.
Yet those dynamics are creating a math problem for Johnson and his leadership team, who are hoping to send the bill to the Senate ahead of next week’s holiday recess but have little room for defections.
If all members are present and voting, and all Democrats oppose the package, Republicans can afford to lose just two GOP votes and pass the bill, sending it to the Senate.
Four GOP members had voiced opposition to the CR in recent days — but some were firmer than others. Libertarian-leaning Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.) has been a reliable vote against stopgap bills. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) said it would be “disloyalty” to Trump by continuing funding approved under former President Biden.
But Rep. Victoria Spartz (Ind.) has a reputation of staking out opposition on key votes before flipping at the last minute, and Rep. Warren Davidson (Ohio) has signaled openness to voting for the CR if he hears a plan from GOP leaders to lower spending over the longer term.
Spartz reiterated her position Thursday that she is opposed to the legislation: “I’ve made my statement.”
Yet other Republicans who have opposed CRs in previous years, such as House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.), are supporting the plan.
“We’re moving in the right direction. We’re moving to get appropriations funding done. I’m going to support that because I know that the administration, that this president, his goal is to help us get back to the art of constitutional governance that hasn’t been practiced around here in years,” Emmer said.
The funding bill is a test of party loyalty for Democrats, too. Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) voted in favor of the Republican bill in March, when he was the only House Democrat to cross the aisle. He said, at the time, that he simply couldn’t vote in favor of shuttering the government.
Heading into Friday’s vote, it’s unclear if he will stick with that position this time around. Golden declined to comment earlier in the week. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), another moderate Democrat, has also not forecast how she’ll vote.
Despite the overwhelming opposition from Democrats in the House, they’re powerless to block the bill in a chamber where only a simple majority is needed to approve bills. The party’s real leverage is in the Senate, where Democrats can use the filibuster to sink legislation that lacks 60 votes.
In the March CR fight, Schumer declined to employ that tool, siding instead with Republicans and helping to send the GOP bill to Trump’s desk. The decision infuriated Democrats in the House and fueled some calls from within the base for Schumer to be replaced at the top of the party.
This time, Schumer has joined House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in vowing to oppose the package. He’s citing the urgency of extending the ObamaCare subsidies, but also says Democrats are in a much better political position this month to hold the line and use their leverage.
“It’s much different now,” Schumer said in announcing his opposition. “The Republicans are in a much weaker position now than they were then.”
It remains unclear, however, if Schumer’s position will convince enough moderate Senate Democrats to withhold their support, thereby preventing GOP leaders from hitting the 60-vote threshold to defeat a filibuster.
In March, Schumer was one of 10 Democrats who had helped to advance the Republican bill, but that number is expected to shrink. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is the lone Republican expected to oppose the bill, meaning GOP leaders would need a total of eight Democrats to cross the aisle to pass the bill.
Aside from continuing current funding levels, the CR includes a boost in member security following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, adding $30 million to a mutual aid account that reimburses local police for security services.
And it includes a fix for the District of Columbia’s budget, which faced a $1 billion shortfall after language relating to funding the federal city was left out of the March CR.
