House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) delivered an early Christmas gift to Democrats Friday night by expanding spending levels that Republicans overwhelmingly opposed earlier this year.
The House will once again fulfill its obligation to fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year, this time through March 14, 2025, and will meet Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in February and March 2024. Extended negotiated spending levels and policy priorities. And President Joe Biden.
Zero Democrats voted against the bill. A whopping 196 people voted in favor of starting the Christmas holidays early, with 1 person voting and 14 people missing the vote.
The 170 Republicans who want to go home for Christmas also voted in favor of the bill, with 34 voting against it and 15 absent.
The smell of eggnog is a powerful motivator.
Third time was the charm for Johnson. A funding bill negotiated with Democrats earlier this week collapsed after Republicans from across the ideological spectrum objected to the content and style of the agreement Johnson negotiated.
Republican lawmakers say Johnson negotiated the bill with Democrats to reduce his own representation, gave the supposed continuing resolution a surprising Democratic priority, and forced the bill into their knees at the last minute. He criticized the decision to scrap the bill.
These concerns about Mr Johnson's leadership style are likely to persist ahead of the House of Commons' roll call vote for Speaker on January 3, 2025.
President-elect Donald Trump and his team intervened at the last minute on Tuesday after Johnson's initial deal fell apart. President Trump called for removing the Democratic benefit from the bill and instead adding a provision addressing debt limits that would be lifted or forgiven in mid-2025.
The bill died on the floor Thursday night, with many Republicans again objecting to Johnson's push to force a last-minute vote.
The deal that ultimately passed was a relatively clean CR with a one-year extension of the Farm Bill and farmer and disaster aid, something many Republicans had originally wanted. But in pitching the failed deal to Republicans, Johnson said Tuesday that House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) would vote on farmer aid and disaster relief unless there were significant concessions. He claimed that there was no such thing.
To get farm aid, Johnson would have to give Democrats metaphorical agriculture, as Johnson said.
Johnson did not call Jeffries' bluff, and a week of confusion ensued. And in the end, Democrats almost uniformly supported a continuation of the funding levels and policy priorities they overwhelmingly supported earlier this year and in September, when those levels were first extended.
Many Republicans now wonder if Mr. Johnson should have pushed for Mr. Jeffries' demands more aggressively instead of bowing to them. In hindsight, Democrats clearly would have continued to support existing spending levels, and Johnson could have tackled the debt ceiling or included other Trump priorities in the bill. .
But instead of attacking, Johnson blinked.
And zero Democrats opposed the final product.
The Republican House majority remains slim, and there will be many more important battles to come. House Republicans and President Trump will need to decide whether Johnson is the person they want as the next commander in chief in Congress who will fight for Trump's priorities and lead negotiations.
The bill now needs to be introduced in the Senate, where it is expected to pass easily. The timing of the Senate's action was not immediately clear, but it is likely to be passed by Monday, when the effects of the government shutdown would be felt earliest.
Bradley Jay is Breitbart News' Capitol Hill correspondent. Follow him on X/Twitter. @BradleyAJay.
