House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is meeting with President Donald Trump on Thursday in a bid to iron out a debacle involving a bipartisan housing reform bill and election integrity legislation.
The controversy sparked on Wednesday morning, when Trump shocked Capitol Hill by canceling the signing of the major housing bill, which the lower chamber pushed across the finish line the prior evening by a wide bipartisan margin. Trump linked the bill’s signing to the passage of the SAVE America Act, which aims to strengthen voter ID requirements and mandate proof of citizenship in elections, and said his signature was conditional on whether Congress passes the election integrity legislation.
The housing bill will still automatically pass into law after 10 days, given that congressional leaders present the bill to Trump, even if he doesn’t sign it. But Trump’s move fired up some of his allies in the House, with lawmakers such as Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) leading the charge to essentially shut down all other activity in the lower chamber to force debate on the SAVE America Act.
Johnson’s meeting with Trump on the matter on Thursday comes after he backed the president’s move on Wednesday, but suggested that Trump would still end up signing the housing bill within 10 days.
“He has a window of time before he has to sign a bill, and he’s going to use a little bit more of that window of time, and we’re going to go through this together,” the speaker said.
LUNA AND ROY VOW TO OPPOSE ALL HOUSE FLOOR ACTION UNTIL SENATE PASSES VOTER ID BILL
Johnson said Trump agreed Republicans could pass key parts of the SAVE America Act through budget reconciliation legislation that would include voter ID requirements.
The reconciliation process could help the bill advance in the Senate by circumventing filibusters, advancing partisan tax or spending bills with a simple majority. The bill has already passed the House but would otherwise almost certainly be doomed in the upper chamber due to Republicans’ razor-thin majority.