Members of Congress might not agree on much right now, but they all have the same calendar, and they all know what happens in 11 days: The deadline for a government shutdown is Monday, Sept. 30, at midnight. House Speaker Mike Johnson has a bill he likes that would, at least in theory, keep the government’s lights on.
He just can’t pass it through the chamber controlled by his own party. NBC News reported:
House Republicans on Wednesday defeated their own plan to avert a government shutdown at the end of the month, with the party divided over the length of a short-term funding bill and what, if anything, should be attached to it. It was an embarrassing blow to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who had yanked the same funding package off the floor last week amid growing GOP defections, only to watch it collapse on Wednesday in a vote that seemed doomed from the start.
The final vote was 202 to 220. Three Democrats in competitive districts voted for the bill; 14 Republicans broke party ranks; and two far-right Republicans voted “present.”
The struggling House speaker has reportedly told his colleagues that he has some kind of backup plan, though he hasn’t told anyone what it is.
Let’s take a brief stroll down memory lane and review how we arrived at this point.
As the summer began, Johnson had a plan: Congress would pass a series of appropriations bills, funding the government through the next fiscal year, before lawmakers began their August break. That plan collapsed in July when the Republican leader’s own members balked.
As representatives returned to Capitol Hill after Labor Day, Johnson unveiled a new plan: The GOP-led House would pass a temporary, six-month measure — called a “continuing resolution” (or “CR”) — that included some spending cuts and, at Donald Trump’s urging, a far-right election scheme called the SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote.
The beleaguered House speaker announced that members would vote on that legislation last Wednesday — right up until Johnson realized that too many of his fellow Republicans hated the bill, forcing him to pull his own bill in embarrassing fashion.
At that point, common sense suggested the Louisiana Republican needed a new plan. Instead, he said he’d try again with the identical bill.
Asked if he understood why Johnson was doing this, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told Axios ahead of the vote, “I have no idea.” The New York Democrat wasn’t alone.
“I don’t know how he thinks it’s going to pass … where are the votes coming from?” Republican Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas said. “There’s an old saying in Arkansas that you don’t learn nothing the second time you get kicked in the head by a mule,” Republican Rep. Steve Womack added.
Soon after, the bill did, in fact, fail. The vote wasn’t especially close.
So what happens now? No one seems to have any idea what Johnson and the GOP leadership team will do next. If the Louisiana Republican continues to insist on pushing a far-right spending bill, filled with radical and unnecessary anti-election measures, he’ll certainly make Trump happy, but Johnson won’t have a bill that can pass either chamber.
If the House speaker backs down and agrees to a clean, bipartisan bill, he’ll prevent a shutdown, but he’ll need Democrats to save his skin — again — and further weaken his standing within the GOP conference he ostensibly leads. Complicating matters, Johnson’s latest embarrassments come on the heels of several months’ worth of similar setbacks. And if that weren’t quite enough, Trump and his running mate seem to think a pre-election shutdown would be a good idea — the former president touted a pro-shutdown approach shortly before the latest House vote — even as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned his fellow Republicans that such an outcome would be “politically beyond stupid.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, is still waiting for House Republican leaders to somehow get their act together. “For weeks, Speaker Johnson pursued a partisan ploy knowing full well it had no chance of passing or averting a shutdown,” the New York Democrat said in a written statement after Johnson’s latest failure. “We now have only a few days left for House Republicans to come to their senses, come to the table, and come together with Democrats to craft a bipartisan agreement. “Democrats are prepared to work in a bipartisan way, just as we have many times this year, to avoid a shutdown. Speaker Johnson has a simple choice: will he just pay blind obeisance to Donald Trump, or will he side with the American people and avoid a shutdown? America cannot afford another Trump shutdown.” Watch this space. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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