Speaker Johnson To Hold House Vote On Stopgap Funding Measure Wednesday

Punchbowl News reports that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) will hold a vote on his short-term Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the federal government on Wednesday. Without a short-term funding patch in place, the government will partially shutdown on October 1.

• Punchbowl notes the package will track closely with the one that was pulled last week, calling for a six-month extension paired with a partisan bill to require citizenship ID when registering to vote (The SAVE Act).
• Johnson's previous attempt collapsed under pressure from multiple GOP factions. Republican defence hawks were concerned the six-month extension could cause Pentagon shortfalls; fiscal conservatives, many of whom never vote in favour of CRs, criticised Johnson for failing to complete the FY2025 appropriations process before the deadline.
• It is unclear if Johnson has successfully whipped his conference in favour of the package, but the consensus view among analysts is that any CR that extends funding into the next administration - or with the SAVE attached - will be rejected by the Senate.
• If Johnson can jam his CR through the House, it will give him some leverage in negotiations with Democrats, but our baseline scenario is that Congressional leaders will eventually acquiesce to a 'clean' three-month CR to offset any potential political fallout of a government shutdown so close to Election Day.
• As conventional wisdom suggests the party in control of the House attracts most of the blame for a shutdown, Johnson and frontline House Republicans will likely more readily accept a compromise solution than in previous cycles.