GOP-Favored Continuing Resolution Not Making Progress

It’s reevaluation time for Republican leaders in the United States House of Representatives, as Congress has finished the week no closer to a government funding solution than when the week started. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) pulled the continuing resolution (CR) he’d proposed from consideration, seeing it didn’t have the votes to pass.

The proposed CR — six months long with a federal voter ID bill (the SAVE Act) attached to it — has zero chance of passage in the Democrat-controlled Senate, but Speaker Johnson believed that passing it in the House would give Republicans leverage in negotiating a compromise CR. The problem for him now is just passing it in the House.

“There were some challenges with it,” said Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-OK5) in an interview Thursday morning.

For Congresswoman Stephanie Bice, an appropriator with responsibility for military construction, six months is too long. She and other more moderate Republicans — not to mention Democrats — want a 3-month stopgap measure that gives this Congress — not the next — the ability to finalize fiscal year 2025 spending.

“We think that putting this forward before the end of the year is the best solution,” Bice explained. “Pushing spending out to March of next year actually is detrimental to our military and it’s not something I would be able to support, as a stand-alone (measure).”

Now, combined with the SAVE Act, Bice said she would put her military spending concerns aside and vote yes. So would Congressman Kevin Hern, the fiscal hawk who has never voted for a continuing resolution since joining Congress in 2018 — that's how important he thinks the SAVE Act is to election security.

“I think Speaker Johnson is right in attaching it to the continuing resolution to fund the government and I support that fully,” Rep. Hern (R-OK1) said in an interview in his office Wednesday morning. “And if that gets to the floor … I’m going to support it.”

But other Republicans remained noncommittal. Oklahoma Freedom Caucus member Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-OK2) was 'leaning' toward a yes vote, but said he wanted assurance that, if plan A were to fail, plan B wouldn't be an omnibus spending bill.

“I'm looking for the ramp that keeps us from doing the same typical omnibus, bloated spending bills that we often see in the fall and winter,” Rep. Brecheen said in an interview this week.

Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, is urging House leaders to let the government shut down if Democrats prevent them from passing a CR with the SAVE Act attached to it. But a shutdown is not what most members want.

“If we can’t get that across the finish line, I think we have to err on the side of keeping government open for the time being,” said Congresswoman Bice. “We don’t want to stop paying our military, we don’t want to stop paying our Border Patrol. That would be a really bad position to be in, especially right before an election.”

When members return next week, they’ll have exactly two weeks to agree on a funding plan before government agencies run out of money.