It’s House Speaker Mike Johnson‘s (R-LA) turn to usher a shutdown-ending funding bill through Congress, but unlike past spending fights, Republicans are expected to pass the legislation with relative ease.
Some of the House’s biggest budget hawks have signaled their support for the Senate-passed bill, despite past concerns about short-term patches to fund the government. That includes the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which sent a list of talking points to its members on Monday, touting the legislation as a “complete and total win.”
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“This continuing resolution gets government funding to the end of January 2026, thereby blocking attempts by Democrats and the Swamp to force a budget-busting, pork-filled, lobbyist-handout omnibus at the last minute before Christmas,” reads the memorandum, confirmed by the Washington Examiner.
Having the conservative caucus on his side is a significant win for Johnson, signaling that he is unlikely to face many holdouts to the legislation on the House floor.
Even Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), a Freedom Caucus member who has been a thorn in Johnson’s side in the past and is a member of the powerful Rules Committee, confirmed to the Washington Examiner that he would support the bill both in committee and when it comes to the floor for a full vote. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), another Rules Committee fiscal hawk, also confirmed he would vote “yes” as long as the text does not include surprise provisions.
The Rules Committee is expected to meet Tuesday evening to mark up the legislation, the first hurdle to passing the Senate measure through the House after more than 40 days of shutdown gridlock.
Johnson gave his members a 36-hour notice to return to Washington late Monday after the Senate altered a stopgap bill the House first passed in September. Senate Republicans were joined by seven Democrats and one independent who caucuses with Democrats to clear the 60-vote threshold to break the filibuster.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) denounced the new bill and has advised his members to vote against it because it does not address premium Obamacare subsidies they wanted extended as part of the shutdown fight.
“We will not support spending legislation advanced by Senate Republicans that fails to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits,” Jeffries said in a statement.
Democrats will most likely not be the only “no” votes.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is known for voting against major pieces of legislation related to spending, as he is a staunch advocate of lowering the national debt. Massie has also expressed concerns about provisions in the bill that add various parameters to the definition of hemp, renewing a sticking point that first began with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), his Kentucky colleague, in the Senate.
“Kentucky benefits from hemp production, and I fully support Senator Rand Paul’s efforts to strip the unrelated hemp ban from the Senate funding bill,” Massie told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “I detest the tactics that are being used to try to get this ban enacted into law.”
After 14 failed votes on the short-term bill previously passed by the House, the Senate’s version will extend the funding through the end of January and include a minibus of three appropriations bills that would fund the Veterans Affairs and Agriculture departments, among others. The bill does not include any extension of the Obamacare subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of this year, that Democrats have been fighting for.
Senate Republicans have vowed to allow a vote next month on the expiring subsidies, with no guarantee that they can pass Congress or be signed into law. As another concession, Republicans have agreed to reverse thousands of planned layoffs that the White House announced on Oct. 1, the first day of the shutdown. Johnson has not made any promises to bring up a bill to extend the subsidies and made clear last week that he was “not part of any negotiations.”
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“The House did its job on Sept. 19,” Johnson said at a press conference, referring to the House-passed bill. “I’m not promising anybody anything.”
Eight senators joined 52 Republicans in voting for the measure to fund the government on Monday night: Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL), John Fetterman (D-PA), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Angus King (I-ME), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH).
Rachel Schilke contributed to this report.