WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday defeated a $1.6 trillion stopgap spending bill to extend current government funding into March and impose new proof-of-citizenship requirements on voter registration, as Republicans and Democrats alike rejected Speaker Mike Johnson’s proposal to avert a shutdown at the end of the month.
The bipartisan repudiation was entirely expected after several Republicans had made clear they would not back the spending plan and Democrats almost uniformly opposed the voting-registration proposal. The vote was 220-202, with 14 Republicans joining all but three Democrats in opposition. Two Republicans voted present.
Even with a Sept. 30 deadline approaching to fund the government, Johnson had pulled the plug on the vote last week as it became clear that his plan would not have the necessary support. But the speaker, under pressure from former President Donald Trump and the hard right to insist on the proposal, plunged ahead Wednesday anyway, working to show members of his party that he was willing to fight for their principles.
“Congress has an immediate obligation to do two things: responsibly fund the federal government and ensure the security of our elections,” said Johnson, who has made the voting registration bill a personal crusade. He said voting by just a few noncitizens “can throw an election. They can throw the majority of the House. It could affect the presidential race. It’s very, very serious stuff.”
In the hours before the vote, Trump posted on social media that if Republicans did not get “every ounce” of the citizenship verification bill, they should not agree to a measure to keep government funding flowing “in any way, shape, or form.” He charged, baselessly, that Democrats were “registering Illegal Voters by the TENS OF THOUSANDS, as we speak,” adding, “They will be voting in the 2024 Presidential Election.”
There is no evidence of that happening, and state audits and data compiled by groups across the political spectrum have found no indication that noncitizens are voting in large numbers.
“Let me state a fact,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. “The Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections. It is not legal in any state for a noncitizen to vote for a federal office.”
While Republicans backed the voter proposal, some hard-right conservatives refused to support the legislation because they regard current federal spending levels as too high. And some GOP members of the Armed Services Committee criticized the measure for the opposite reason, arguing that the six-month timeline would shortchange the military by delaying needed spending increases.
Lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol predicted that by the odd logic of a dysfunctional Congress, the defeat of Johnson’s initial funding plan could lead to a breakthrough. Democrats and Republicans expressed hope that it would open the door to a shorter-term spending patch, free of the voting measure, that could pass both the House and Senate in time to prevent the shutdown that would otherwise take hold by Oct. 1.
“I hope that once the speaker’s CR fails, he moves on to a strategy that will actually work: bipartisan cooperation,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. and the majority leader, said Wednesday, referring to the funding bill known as a continuing resolution. “It’s the only thing that has kept the government open every time we have faced a funding deadline. It’s going to be the only thing that works this time, too.”
Senators in both parties support extending funding only into mid-December, allowing them time to try to reach a long-term deal on spending bills to run through September 2025.
They maintain that the longer-term legislation the speaker has pushed would shortchange the military and national security by not adjusting spending to meet current events, and that legislation approved by the Senate spending panel is a preferable alternative in light of international developments.
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