Congress passed a bill Thursday that would keep operations running through March 1 and March 8.
Yet another Continuing Resolution passed the Senate 77-18 and the House 314-108. It’s those 108 "no" votes that could be a problem for House Speaker Mike Johnson sooner rather than later.
The House was thrown into chaos last October when Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) moved to vacate the Speaker’s chair and oust Kevin McCarthy. Several candidates came and went along a contentious path to McCarthy’s replacement before it landed with Johnson.
The biggest issue among the more conservative wing of House Republicans was spending. Nothing’s changed some of those far right conservatives say.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has brought up the possibility of a no confidence vote on Johnson. So has Rep. Chip Roy who earlier this month told The Steve Deace Show that a vacate-the-chair effort against Johnson was not “off the table.”
Rep. Eli Crane was more vague earlier this week but praised the current rules which allow for any single House member to call for a vote to vacate the chair.
“Speaker Johnson was brought in at the 2-minute warning -- and in the second half, not in the first half -- and asked to win the game or at least keep it continued. We tied the game, we’re in overtime, we’re in the game. But we want to win the game,” Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Oklahoma) said on Washington Watch Thursday.
Johnson avoids Omnibus but CRs remain part of life
Johnson’s two-step negotiations plan last November resulted in a Continuing Resolution but allowed Congress to pass some of its 12 spending measures and avoid the massive Omnibus spending bill that Republicans say have grown so large that they can’t be adequately considered when pushed against a holiday deadline.
Hern told show host Tony Perkins that winning means getting the budget done on time, or early, and being prepared to use its leverage by saying it will allow a shutdown if that’s what it takes.
“The American people are sick and tired of these continuing resolutions,” he said.
The measure that passed Thursday continues spending levels put in place when former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrats led the House. It funds measures like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies, abortion travel (for military), Biden administration social policies and more, Hern said.
“All these things are in these continuing resolutions that’s why it’s so important that we actually get our appropriations bills done in order. Ever since I’ve been here for almost six years we’ve talked about regular order,” Hern said.
Funding the government is a two-way discussion, and getting conservative policy riders passed by the Democrat-controlled Senate for one bill to send to the President has not been easy.
“People forget, all attention’s on the House because we do have the power of the purse. We worked fervently all through last year, got seven appropriations bills passed out of the House that represented some 81% of government spending, that was under Speaker McCarthy’s leadership,” Hern said.
Border bill is the sticking point
Among those bills is HR 2, the House’s border policy, which the Senate has called a non-starter because of some of its conservative demands. The House border bill would drastically reduce asylum in the U.S. and stem the flow of thousands who cross into the country daily.
“We also negotiated HR 1, which is our energy policy, HR 2 our border policy, and that HR 2, our border policy, is front and center right now with Sen. Lankford working on border policy on the Senate side, but we’ve now got to come together, work with our Democrat colleagues on those appropriations bills and get those done between March 1 and March 8,” Hern said.
Failure to hit those deadlines will result in a shutdown that Congress appears set to avoid for now.
“It’s irresponsible. That’s my take on it," the Congressman concluded. "I came here being a fiscal conservative. The only thing that prevents us from hitting those deadlines is us. That’s my concern, that we continue to kick this can down the road."
