House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has pledged that the House will not approve a single giant bill for government-wide funding in December, a scenario that conservatives fear, even though a stopgap bill that expires Dec. 20 is expected to pass the House this week.
“There will be no Christmas comprehensive bill,” Johnson said at a news conference on Tuesday, repeating a message he delivered privately to lawmakers at a House Republican conference call earlier in the day.
It's a bold promise from the speaker who has struggled to hold together a slim Republican majority in the House of Representatives behind an effective strategy to pressure the Democratic-controlled Senate and White House over spending.
It also flies in the face of historical precedent: Congress has traditionally passed omnibus spending bills when budget deadlines overlap with year-end holidays, when lawmakers are eager to wrap up their legislative business and get home to their families.
Conservatives, fearful that Democrats and lame-duck President Biden would include their priorities in the bill, have tried to avoid that scenario. They pushed for a stopgap spending bill that would have extended the funding through March 2025, but it died in the full House.
The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on Wednesday on a continuing resolution (CR) that would extend the government budget until December 20 in order to avert a government shutdown on October 1. Many conservative senators who oppose any stopgap measure are expected to vote against the bill, but it is likely to pass with Democratic support.
Johnson pointed to two separate government budget extensions since December as evidence he can avoid an omnibus budget this year. The House of Commons ultimately approved the government's budget in two separate large installments, but only after multiple stopgap measures to buy lawmakers time.
“We've broken our Christmas traditions, and we're not going back to those awful traditions,” Johnson said.
Mr Johnson has also ruled out other big funding bills, such as a “minibus” bill, which would consolidate funding for some areas of government rather than all of them – with government funding theoretically split across 12 budget bills.
“We don't need buses. We're not going to run buses, OK?” Johnson said.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, delivered a similar message, portraying this week's stopgap bill as a victory because it did not include other funding that Senate Democrats wanted.
“It's always a tough negotiation. The Senate wanted to spend more money, but the speaker stood up to the Senate and said, 'No, we're not going to do that,'” Scalise said. “They wanted to play the old Christmas Eve Omni game where they take the omnibus down on Christmas Eve. Nobody reads the bill, it's just voted on and everybody leaves town. We said no to it last year and Speaker Mike Johnson is saying no to it again this year.”
Johnson noted that the House has passed five of 12 regular budget bills that were packed with Republican priorities and were thought to have died as soon as they reached the Senate, but the Senate has not passed any of them, and he put the blame on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
“I hope, I plead, I urge the Senate to do their job. As Leader Scalise has pointed out, they are not doing their job. This is Chuck Schumer's fault,” Johnson said.
There's also a pressure point that wasn't there last year: It's the end of the 118th Congress, and the balance of power could shift in January.
Regardless of the election outcome, Johnson will face a Democratic-controlled Senate and White House in December but a slim and shaky Republican majority — a dynamic that has plagued numerous fundraising battles over the past 21 months.
In fact, the three-month CR, which will be voted on this week, is Johnson's Plan B to avoid a government shutdown on October 1st.
Johnson's initial “strategy” in the fight over government funding was to combine a six-month continuing resolution (CR) with a measure promoted by former President Trump called the Protect American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would have required proof of citizenship to register to vote.
The bill was not expected to pass due to opposition from Senate Democrats and the White House, but was intended to be a springboard for negotiations.
Johnson didn't get a chance to make this initial proposal because it failed to get through the House's slim Republican majority: 14 Republicans, mostly fiscal hawks who are hesitant to any continuing resolution, voted against the bill.
