House of Representatives to pass new funding bill as some Republicans fear a “galactically stupid” shutdown

WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives is set to vote this week on a three-month stopgap funding bill as time runs out and Donald Trump pushes Republicans to shut down the government without political concessions they cannot realistically enforce.

Contrary to Trump's view, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson reached a deal with the White House and leading Democrats on Sunday that would keep government funding at current levels through Dec. 20 but removes a provision pushed by the former president that would have required a nationwide change to voting laws requiring proof of citizenship to vote.

As the House adjourned for the week on Friday, Johnson declined to say whether Trump, whom he has consulted regularly during the funding fight, would agree to passage of a package without the citizenship-based voting component, known as the SAVE Act. Trump and Johnson met for three hours at Mar-a-Lago last week, immediately after a second suspected assassination attempt on Trump, and they met again in Washington on Thursday.

“I've had many conversations with President Trump,” Johnson told reporters. “I won't give everything away, but he understands the situation we're in. He's adamant about making sure election security remains a top priority, and so am I, which is why I included the SAVE Act in the CR.”

The federal government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 1 unless Congress can pass a short-term funding bill, called a Continuing Resolution, or CR. Both President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DNY, expressed support for the CR released Sunday and urged the House of Representatives to pass it quickly.

“If both sides continue to work together in good faith, I am confident we can complete work on the CR this week, well before the Sept. 30 deadline,” Schumer said in a statement Sunday. “The key to completing our work this week will be bipartisan cooperation in both chambers.”

Last week, 14 Republicans in the House joined with nearly all Democrats to torpedo a six-month funding bill that included the SAVE Act. This embarrassing failure for Republicans allowed bipartisan negotiators in the House and Senate to begin drafting a “clean” CR that no longer contained controversial provisions.

Johnson on Sunday unveiled the text of the new CR, which would keep the government open until Dec. 20, getting Congress past the contentious election and giving members more time to negotiate a longer-term funding agreement for fiscal year 2025 before they go on vacation.

The House plans to take up the CR midweek. While it does not include the SAVE Act, the short-term bill provides $231 million in additional funding for the Secret Service following the recent apparent assassination attempt on Trump on September 15.

Johnson and other GOP leaders are pleading with their party not to allow a shutdown just five weeks before Election Day, which would be unprecedented in modern times. Republicans in swing districts say it would be a terrible move because their party would likely be blamed by voters.

“In my opinion, it's galactically stupid to do a government shutdown even after an election. Before an election, it's even worse. It's self-defeating for us as a party to do that right before an election,” said Republican Rep. Mike Garcia of California, who represents one of several dozen contested districts that could decide the majority in the House. “That's why we shouldn't shut down the government.”

When asked if Trump was making it harder to avert a shutdown, Garcia said that was because of Johnson.

“The dynamics of the whole thing are a matter between him and the speaker,” he said. “And the speaker has to set his strategy.”

Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, who is facing a tough election campaign, also said: “Shutting down the government is bad policy, bad governance.”

Johnson's CR should easily pass the House of Representatives – with the support of a large number of Republicans and Democrats. But there is still a faction of conservatives who are vowing to vote no.

“If it's a clean CR into the lame duck, I'm not going to support it,” said Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, a Trump ally and member of the far-right Freedom Caucus. “This issue should be postponed until next year so the next president can work with his team to figure out how we're going to manage the country's finances going forward.”

Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, took steps last week to prepare for a vote on a government funding bill and prepare the upper chamber to intervene if Republicans in the House fail again.

“Unfortunately, time is not a luxury that Congress has right now,” Schumer said on the floor on Thursday. “And instead of doing the bipartisan work that everyone knows is needed to avoid a shutdown, the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives has wasted two weeks – two weeks – listening to Donald Trump's ridiculous claims on the campaign trail.”

But on Sunday, Schumer sounded much more optimistic: He told reporters that he had sat with Johnson “for the last four days” and believed they were “getting closer to an agreement.”

“We have really good news now, there is a really good chance that we can avoid the government shutdown,” he said.

Some Republicans had pushed for swift action by the House of Representatives, fearing that a funding bill passed by the Democratic-led Senate could be filled with unnecessary spending.

“Our fear is that if it comes up in the Senate, there will be a lot of material, it will be very expensive and it will be difficult to pass in the House,” said Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho, a “cardinal” of the Budget Committee who chairs one of the panel's subcommittees on government finance.

If Congress succeeds in passing the new bill before the October 1 deadline, it will face another shutdown battle in December. Supporters of the new December 20 deadline hope that the proximity to Christmas and Congress's last working day of the year will encourage lawmakers to work quickly across party lines.