Johnson unveils new plan to avoid shutdown amid GOP tensions, scraps Trump-backed ballot measure

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday unveiled a new plan to avoid a partial government shutdown after a House Republican rebellion last week derailed a more conservative measure.

House leaders are seeking a vote this week on a short-term extension of this year’s federal funding levels, known as a Continuing Resolution (CR), to give congressional negotiators more time to work out federal spending priorities for the new fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

To prevent a shutdown, the plan must be passed in the House and Senate by the end of the day on September 30. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., signaled that the plan enjoys bipartisan support in both chambers.

The new measure, which comes closer to the demands of Senate Democrats and the White House than his first plan, is likely to provoke outrage among the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus and its allies. But most Republicans are concerned about the political consequences of failure just weeks before Election Day.

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Johnson sharply criticized the upper house for failing to pass a single one of the twelve budget bills. On Sunday, he wrote to his Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives: “Senate Democrats have failed to pass a single budget bill or negotiate an acceptable maximum amount with the House of Representatives for fiscal year 2025. Therefore, provisional appropriation is the only remaining option.”

The plan would prevent a partial government shutdown until Dec. 20. House Republican leadership aides told reporters Sunday that Democrats’ requests for additional funding had been rebuffed and additional disaster relief funding included in Johnson’s original plan had been eliminated.

However, it would include an additional $230 million for the U.S. Secret Service (USSS), coupled with certain oversight measures, following a bipartisan call for greater security following two foiled assassination attempts on former President Trump.

Perhaps the most significant change is the repeal of the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, a law that requires proof of citizenship in the voter registration process.

That Trump-backed bill passed the House of Representatives earlier this year with all Republicans and five Democrats in favor. Johnson hoped that attaching it to a CR would force the Democratic-controlled Senate and White House—both of which had called the bill a dead end—to consider it, or at least serve as an effective opening shot in negotiations.

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But 14 Republicans – most of them opposed to CR on principle – killed the bill last week.

Trump wrote on Truth Social before the vote: “If Republicans can’t get the SAVE Act passed and every bit of it passed, they shouldn’t agree to a continuation resolution in any way, shape or form.”

“Our legislation will be a very narrow, stripped-down CR, containing only those extensions that are absolutely necessary,” Johnson promised his colleagues on Sunday.

“While this is not the solution any of us prefer, it is the most sensible course of action under the current circumstances. As history teaches and recent polls confirm, it would be an act of political malpractice to shut down the government less than 40 days before a fateful election.”

The issue of government funding was one of the most heated issues in the 118th Congress, pitting even the most conservative allies in the House of Representatives against each other.

Johnson’s new plan is unlikely to ease those tensions. Critics of approving the budget by December argue that it would leave them no choice but to combine their 12 annual appropriations bills into one massive “omnibus” spending bill, something almost all Republican lawmakers oppose.

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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized Johnson’s original plan. (Reuters/Mike Segar)

But Republican leadership in the House of Representatives indicated that it was more likely that Congress would pass another CR for the new year rather than setting new amounts for fiscal year 2025 – which would be consistent with Johnson’s original plan.

The speaker’s previous proposal would have funded the government through March, which Democrats and some security experts opposed.

Trump’s allies, however, wanted to continue the fight over government funding only in the new year, in the hope that he would win the White House and bring an all-Republican Congress to power.

Schumer sharply criticized Johnson last week for trying to push through his conservative CR.

“While I am pleased that bipartisan negotiations quickly led to an agreement on government funding without cuts and poison pills, the same agreement could have been made two weeks ago. Instead, Speaker Johnson chose the MAGA route and wasted valuable time,” Schumer said in a statement.

“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 September 30 deadline. The key to completing our work this week will be bipartisan cooperation in both chambers.”