Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team spent the weekend trying to shore up support for his short-term government funding plan. But it is still expected to fail when it comes to the floor on Wednesday.
If it fails, it will highlight publicly what some House Republicans have been saying privately for days: They can’t pass any government funding bill on their own and will ultimately need to team up with Democrats to pass a short-term measure, likely into December.
One GOP lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak candidly, questioned how Johnson’s plan could get 218 votes, noting it would be rejected by the Senate anyway and predicting that Congress will “wind up where everybody suspects we wind up”: with a short-term funding bill into December.
But how close is the House GOP conference to accepting that legislative reality? The lawmaker quipped: “I think if you’ve got psychedelics and a bottle of tequila you might get closer.”
As of late last week, roughly 10 GOP members were poised to vote no on Johnson’s spending bill that pairs funding the government through March 28 to a Republican proposal requiring proof of citizenship in order to vote. There are also several other on-the-fence GOP lawmakers, suggesting opposition could grow when the bill comes to the floor.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), in a lengthy X post this week, accused Johnson of “leading a fake fight,” and that his current government funding plan is “already DOA this week.”
“Speaker Johnson needs to go to the Democrats, who he has worked with the entire time, to get the votes he needs to do what he is already planning to do,” wrote Greene, who has vowed to oppose the bill.
House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) also said he is still a “no” on the bill.
Some Republicans are hoping that once the bill fails on the floor Wednesday, it will force Johnson and the rest of the conference to turn to a backup plan. Johnson punted a vote on the bill last week, but some Republicans believe it needs to come to the floor and fail to show its supporters they don’t have the votes.
Johnson, however, told reporters that he wasn’t currently contemplating a Plan B and wasn’t “having any alternative conversations. That’s the play.”
Johnson gave no indication during a closed-door leadership meeting on Tuesday that he was contemplating alternatives, two people familiar with the meeting said. And Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said during the same meeting that he had flipped some members, one of them added.
Emmer told POLITICO after the meeting that “we’ve moved some people.”
Democrats, meanwhile, are preparing to go on offense against Republicans for bringing the government to the brink of a shutdown just weeks before the election. In private meetings this week, Democratic aides have begun crafting their message: Republicans are choosing Project 2025 — the controversial policy plans drafted by conservative think-tanks and Trump allies — over keeping the government open, according to a person familiar with the discussions.