Government shutdown: House hardliners complicate endgame

House Speaker Mike Johnson is running into problems with his own caucus as he tries to advance a Senate-approved measure to reopen most of the government, which shut down on Saturday morning.

The House Rules Committee is meeting Monday evening about the measure that would fund a wide swath of the government, the first step in getting the bill to the House floor. The bill cleared the Senate on Friday after Democrats there had funding for the Department of Homeland Security stripped and replaced with two weeks of stopgap funding for the agency — a change that requires the House to reapprove the measure.

Because Democrats are not helping Johnson and the GOP fast-track the measure, the speaker will likely have to work within his own razor-thin majority to advance the bill when it reaches the floor for a critical preliminary vote as early as Monday night. At least two Republicans so far have said they will not support the bill unless it includes a controversial voter-ID measure known as the SAVE Act, a new hurdle for Johnson as he aims to end the shutdown. And the Republican majority is about to shrink after Democrat Christian Menefee is sworn in to represent a Houston district after being elected Saturday in a special election.

“I have been clear: the SAVE Act/Save America Act must be attached to the rule for these appropriations bills and sent back to the Senate for a vote,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., said Sunday in a post to X. “This is my price for a ‘yes’ vote.”

Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., joined Luna on Monday.

“House Republicans shouldn’t let Schumer dictate the terms of government funding,” Burlison said, referring to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “If Dems want to play games, no spending package should come out of the House without the SAVE Act attached — securing American elections must be a non-negotiable.”

President Donald Trump on Monday urged Congress to hurry up and send the spending package to him to sign into law.

“We need to get the Government open, and I hope all Republicans and Democrats will join me in supporting this Bill, and send it to my desk WITHOUT DELAY,” he said in a post to Truth Social, saying the House should pass the Senate version without making additional changes.

At the White House on Monday, Trump told reporters he thinks Congress is “pretty close to a resolution.”

But Democrats won’t make the process easy. The House needs to approve the rule before the chamber can vote on the underlying measure and send it to the White House to be signed into law.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., on Monday said at a press conference he doesn’t expect Democrats to support the rule when it advances to the floor from the Rules Committee. Democrats have called for more restrictions on immigration enforcement after federal agents in Minneapolis shot and killed two U.S. citizens.

“Republicans are in the majority in this institution,” Jeffries said. “If they have some massive mandate, then go pass your rule.”

The spending package won support from a key Democrat when House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said Monday she would support the bill on the floor. However, she did not say whether she would support the rule.

“I will support this package,” DeLauro said.

DeLauro said passing the bill would give Democrats “leverage” to secure changes to immigration enforcement that Democrats are seeking.

“If we do not do that, we will not be able to bring the kinds of pressure that is necessary,” DeLauro said.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Monday afternoon in an X post that “every officer in the field in Minneapolis” would be equipped with body cameras. Democrats have pressed during the spending bill negotiations for body cameras.

The demands present Johnson with a tightrope walk. Without Democratic support, he will hold a minuscule one-vote majority to advance anything along party lines. But adding the SAVE Act to the measure would likely doom it in the Senate, where it would need to be reapproved with at least 60 votes to skirt the filibuster.

Schumer said the bill would be dead on arrival in the Senate if the SAVE Act is added.

“I have said it before and I’ll say it again, the SAVE Act would impose Jim Crow type laws to the entire country and is dead on arrival in the Senate,” Schumer said Monday in a statement. “If House Republicans add the SAVE Act to the bipartisan appropriations package it will lead to another prolonged Trump government shutdown.”

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