House to Vote on Bill Averting Government Shutdown Over Some Republicans’ Complaints

WASHINGTON—House lawmakers are set to vote on a stopgap spending bill that would avert a partial government shutdown this weekend, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) forced once again to turn to a coalition made up mostly of Democrats to pass it.

Johnson will meet behind closed doors Thursday morning with his fractured Republican conference ahead of the vote, scheduled for the afternoon. The disunity means Johnson will have to bypass normal procedures and instead bring the bill to the floor using a special approach that requires a two-thirds supermajority, rather than a simple majority.

Then the Senate must pass the bill, too, before it heads to President Biden’s desk. Lawmakers are aiming to get the extension into law before funding for some government departments expires after Friday.

A divided Congress has spent months struggling to complete the 12 bills that set fiscal-year 2024 spending levels for federal agencies, punting multiple times. But lawmakers said they now have the finish line in sight.

Johnson and other top congressional leaders on Wednesday said they had agreed in principle on the substance of half the bills. They said another short-term patch would be needed until March 8 to give lawmakers adequate time for drafting and reviewing text for the first six, and for finishing negotiations on the rest by March 22. The leaders said the fiscal-year 2024 spending levels in those bills would adhere to the bipartisan agreement reached last year, tied to a deal raising the federal government’s debt ceiling.

The plan announced Wednesday drew fire from some frustrated House Republicans.

“What a failure. Complete failure. That’s how I feel about our conference. It’s just a failure all the way around,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.). “We have record dumb things going on,” she fumed.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R., S.C.) said he was disappointed by congressional leaders’ plan to extend the deadlines, saying Republicans passed up a good opportunity to play hardball.

“We need to tie any extension to securing the border, which we haven’t done,” he said. “I realize we’ve got the deadline, but I’m of the opinion we should shut the government down unless we get” spending cuts.

Stopgap bills “are bad, I don’t like it, but it’s even worse to shut the government down,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R., Neb.), who said he will vote yes. “The good thing is we’ve got an agreement. I see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

House Republicans’ private meetings have become notorious for drama in recent months, and members said they were bracing for this one to be particularly charged as members process disappointed hopes for their majority. Asked what he expects in the meeting, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R., Tenn.), who supports the deal Johnson struck, laughed out loud.

“You never know! And that’s one of the great things about conference,” joked Fleischmann, chair of the appropriations subcommittee on energy and water. “But I’ll be there with bells on, and I’ll probably give a pep talk like I always do.”

House Republicans’ historically thin majority currently stands at 219-213, after Rep. Tom Suozzi (D., N.Y), who won a special election, was sworn in to fill the seat held by expelled former Rep. George Santos (R., N.Y.).

Since Johnson can afford to lose no more than two votes on party-line bills, he has turned to Democrats in recent months to help him pass five major bills at a two-thirds threshold: two previous stopgap spending bills; the annual defense-policy bill; a temporary reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration; and a bipartisan tax bill. The willingness of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) to pass a stopgap bill with Democratic votes in September triggered the rebellion that led to his removal in early October, when eight Republicans voted with all Democrats to oust him.

Some House Republicans are still hoping to persuade Johnson to adopt an alternative strategy: passing a long-term temporary spending measure that would keep federal money flowing until Sept. 30. Automatic spending cuts would then kick in on April 30 under the terms of a debt deal reached last year, which called for such cuts if the government was operating under a continuing resolution on that date.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) said he is a “no” on the short-term spending bill. He said he wants the long-term option that would trigger automatic cuts. “I’ve said that for over a year,” Jordan said.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that such a scenario would lead to federal agency budget cuts ranging from 5% to 9% for nondefense funding and from zero to 1% for defense funding.

Write to Katy Stech Ferek at [email protected] and Lindsay Wise at [email protected]