Washington
CNN
—
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to fund the government is already doomed to failure. Republicans are so outraged that they are killing the resolution. Further warnings say the speaker will have to abandon his original proposal to keep the government running.
At least six Republicans in the House have opposed Johnson’s plan to attach a controversial bill that would bar noncitizens from voting in U.S. elections to a six-month government funding resolution. But given Republicans’ slim majority in the House and lack of Democratic support, Republican opposition is enough to block Johnson’s proposal.
Republican Reps. Greg Steube of Florida, Cory Mills of Florida, Jim Banks of Indiana, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Matt Rosendale of Montana have all opposed the plan, known as a Continuing Resolution (CR), which is scheduled to be voted on Wednesday.
Steube told CNN: “I have never voted for a CR and have no plans to do so in the future.”
Banks reiterated: “I voted against the omnibus bill. I will not vote to extend bloated spending for another six months and add trillions of dollars to the national debt. So for me, voting no is an easy choice.”
Mills said Monday that he had told the House Republican leadership team, “I will be a no vote.”
While Massie and Rosendale released statements expressing their opposition to Johnson’s proposal.
Several other hardliners told CNN they had not yet decided whether they would support the package or vote no. Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona said he was “undecided,” while Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said she would have to talk to the speaker and find out if he really insists on having the SAVE Act included in the deal.
“What is Speaker Johnson going to do? Is he willing to fight for it? And if he’s not willing to fight for it, why should we vote for it?” she asked.
“He has to commit to us. Because we conservatives like me are not going to vote for CR unless we know we have a speaker, a leader who is actually going to go into battle,” Greene said. “Otherwise… it’s pointless. It’s really a waste of everyone’s time.”
Addressing her Republican colleagues who oppose Johnson’s plan, Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York told CNN: “Look, I don’t support everything. I mean, there were parts of the budget that I voted against in the past. But do we really want to debate whether to continue the government before the election? I think we have a responsibility to make sure it is funded.”
Other Republicans who support Johnson’s plan say lawmakers should publicly explain why they oppose the bill, which would ban noncitizens from voting in U.S. elections. Voting is already illegal for noncitizens.
After Republican lawmakers began voicing their opposition to his proposal, Johnson seemed less confident that his plan would pass. On Monday night, he told CNN, “We’ll find out” when it’s voted on Wednesday.
“We will have further discussions tonight,” added the Republican from Louisiana. “I am very confident about the principle of our approach and hope that it will be accepted,” said Johnson.
Just a few hours earlier, Johnson had sung another song.
“Let’s see if they have the courage to tell the American people that they want illegals to vote in this election,” Johnson told CNN of the Senate on Monday.
When pressed further, Johnson insisted: “There is no retreat. This is a just fight.”
At a closed meeting with his leadership team on Monday, Johnson went even further.
“He made it very clear that this is the plan, that we are going to do this, that he will not consider anything else,” said Republican Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan about Johnson’s stance at the meeting. “That is his clear line.”
Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader in the House of Representatives, had said Johnson’s proposal was a no-go with House Democrats. On Monday evening, he declared: “They will not bow to the extreme efforts of MAGA Republicans to cut funding for veterans, the military draft and retirees across America.”
Five Democrats in the House of Representatives had previously voted for the controversial bill that would ban non-citizens from voting in U.S. elections and which Johnson attached to his government funding proposal. However, it is still unclear how the group will approach this week’s vote.
Other Republicans say Johnson must ultimately abandon his original proposal to keep the government open and instead put a clear extension of government funding to a vote, as this Congress has done before to avert shutdowns.
Republican Rep. Mike Garcia of California told CNN he expects Johnson’s plan to be scrapped and the government to ultimately be funded only with a simple, clean extension of the term.
“If history is any lesson, the way this is going suggests that at some point we will be voting on either a government shutdown or a clean continuation resolution,” he said.
And Garcia said he wanted these intermediate steps to be clearer.
“I want to see more details,” Garcia told CNN. “I want to see what the follow-on plan looks like. You know the devil is in the details. I don’t like that it’s a six-month CR. I don’t like that we don’t know what Plan B, Plan C, step two and step three are. So I want to have those discussions in the context of the conference.”
Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska said he supported Johnson’s plan but predicted it would not be the final version: “He may have more cards in his hand than I know.”
Given the opposition so far, Republican Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington state said, “There are people who are opposed to it, so I’m not sure what Plan B will be.”
Tom Emmer, the Republican whip in the House, would not say whether he believes Republicans in the House will ultimately stick together and pass their version of the funding package.
“Well, we’ll see. It’s the speaker’s priority. He’s pushing hard for it. We’ll go through it and see where we stand,” Emmer told reporters.
This story has been updated with further developments.
