House Passes Short-Term Spending Bill, Setting Stage For Possible Pre-Holiday Fight

The House passed a three-month funding bill on Wednesday to keep the government open through Dec. 20, which would force lawmakers to renegotiate spending rates right before the holidays.

Speaker Mike Johnson’s continuing resolution (CR) passed with a 341-82 vote after his original funding bill failed on Sept. 18. The question remains whether or not Johnson’s funding compromise will open the door for another pre-Christmas omnibus, although he has repeatedly reassured his GOP colleagues that he intends to avoid one.

Democrats unanimously voted to pass the CR, while 82 Republicans voted against it. The Senate is expected to vote on the legislation Wednesday evening.

“If he wants to be speaker again, he’s not going to do an omnibus,” a House Republican aide told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “But if he doesn’t care about being Speaker, he will. I’d be shocked if he ends up going through with a third CR. There will probably be another long-term omnibus.”

“He’s in trouble if he passes an omnibus with suspension,” newly-elected House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris told The Blaze. “Because… he told us Tuesday morning he is not going to agree to an omnibus in December… So I think we should hold them to that.”

Johnson initially attempted to pass a six-month CR with an attached bill called the SAVE Act, which requires individuals to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote. The vote was initially scheduled for Sept. 11, but Johnson abruptly pulled the CR from the floor in order to “build consensus” after several Republicans came out against it due to fiscal concerns.

“The goal is to use the power that you’ve got to actually move the ball down the field and score, and do what you said you would do,” Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, who spearheaded the SAVE Act, told NOTUS. “There’s a lot that we’ve left on the field that I think we could have accomplished had we been more aggressive.”

The House voted on the same CR packaged with the SAVE Act a week later on Sept. 18, but it was ultimately blocked by 14 Republicans and 206 Democrats. Johnson could only afford to lose four Republican votes due to the GOP’s slim majority in the House.

“They did try, in their defense, to do the SAVE Act first,” Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida told The Hill. “But there were people that voted against that that wanted an omnibus.”

Johnson unveiled the latest CR on Sunday, which would keep the federal government funded through Dec. 20 and features an additional $230 million in funding for the Secret Service. Although the CR would force lawmakers to renegotiate spending levels right before the holidays, Johnson has reiterated that he intends to avoid an omnibus.

“While this is not the solution any of us prefer, it is the most prudent path forward under the present circumstances,” Johnson said in a letter Sunday. “As history has taught and current polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice.”

So far, the House has only passed five of the twelve appropriations bills ahead of the Sept. 30 fiscal deadline. The Senate, however, has not passed any.

Congress has not passed all twelve appropriations bills since the 1997 fiscal year.

“If I were to guess, I’d probably say he goes with the omnibus,” the House Republican aide told the DCNF. “But is that actually the case? I couldn’t tell you, because I’m not inside their world.”