Home Speaker Mike Johnson canceled a deliberate vote Wednesday on a stopgap funding invoice that would hold the authorities open for the following six months after greater than a dozen of his fellow Republicans walked again their assist for it.
“We’re going to work through the weekend on that,” mentioned Johnson, R-La., lower than 5 hours earlier than the scheduled vote.
“No vote today because we’re in the consensus-building business here in Congress with small majorities,” he mentioned.
Speaker of the Home Mike Johnson, R-La., conducts a information convention within the Capitol Customer Middle after a gathering of the Home Republican Convention on Tuesday, September 10, 2024.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Name, Inc. | Getty Pictures
The U.S. authorities is about to partially shut down at 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 1 if a funding deal shouldn’t be handed by Congress. That’s barely greater than a month earlier than the November elections, which is able to decide which political celebration controls each chambers of Congress and the following president.
Johnson and different Republican congressional leaders anticipated as many as 15 defections from the GOP caucus on the funding measure if the vote occurred Wednesday, NBC Information reported. On Monday, solely two Republicans had pledged to vote in opposition to the invoice.
Johnson has a razor-thin GOP majority within the Home. He can afford to lose solely 4 Republicans if each Home member votes.
And on Tuesday evening, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., was hospitalized in Washington after collapsing at an occasion, probably making him unavailable Wednesday. His son in a social media put up reported that medical doctors mentioned Wilson was experiencing “stroke-like symptoms.”
Complicating Johnson’s vote-corralling efforts is former President Donald Trump, who has mentioned that Republicans mustn’t go any spending plan with out the so-called SAVE Act hooked up.
The SAVE Act would require individuals to indicate proof of citizenship to register as a voter.
Congressional Democrats have vowed to vote in opposition to any spending plan paired with the SAVE Act. Which means the invoice could be lifeless on arrival within the Democrat-controlled Senate.
Trump, who’s the Republican presidential nominee, mentioned GOP lawmakers ought to be able to shut down the federal government if the voter identification proposal shouldn’t be within the spending invoice.
“If Republicans in the House, and Senate, don’t get absolute assurances on Election Security, THEY SHOULD, IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, GO FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET,” Trump wrote in a Reality Social put up Tuesday.
“THE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO ‘STUFF’ VOTER REGISTRATIONS WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS. DON’T LET IT HAPPEN – CLOSE IT DOWN!!!” he added.
In response to CNBC’s request for remark about Trump’s put up, a spokesperson for Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., pointed to a Tuesday interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“Extreme MAGA Republicans, led by Donald Trump, are determined to shut the government down unless they jam Trump’s Project 2025 down the throats of the American people,” Jeffries mentioned in that interview.