The House Rules Committee advanced the rule for Republicans’ stopgap funding measure, clearing the bill’s first procedural hurdle despite its ultimate fate still being in doubt amid opposition within the GOP conference.
The committee advanced the continuing resolution proposal along party lines on Monday night. The vote tees the legislation up for a vote on the full House floor sometime this week.
HERE ARE THE HOUSE REPUBLICANS WHO HAVE PLEDGED TO VOTE NO ON STOPGAP SPENDING MEASURE
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) had previously said he planned to vote against advancing the measure in the Rules Committee but reversed his position and voted to advance it.
The 31-day continuing resolution would keep defense and veteran affairs funding at fiscal 2023 levels while other domestic agencies receive an 8% cut. This would bring spending to $1.59 trillion — the spending level set in the debt ceiling deal signed into law in June, while conservatives want the cap to be set at $1.471 trillion, the spending level in House Republicans’ first debt ceiling bill that went nowhere.
It will also include some border security provisions in the homeland security appropriations bill, which the Washington Examiner has reported. In the continuing resolution, the Department of Defense and Military Construction and Veteran Affairs appropriations bills will be funded at the current fiscal 2023 levels, and everything else will receive an 8% cut, according to a source with direct knowledge of the deal.
It’s unclear when the bill will be brought up for a vote on the floor, but Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) indicated plans to bring it up as early as Thursday. However, McCarthy must still grapple with a growing number of holdout votes within his own conference threatening to sink the bill’s passage, prompting the speaker to vow to keep lawmakers in Washington over the weekend until a deal is hammered out.
With Republicans having a slim majority in the lower chamber, McCarthy can only afford to lose four GOP votes if all Democrats oppose the legislation. So far, at least 13 House Republicans have come out in opposition of the bill, putting the chamber’s leadership in a bind as it hopes for a vote sometime this week.
Members who have come out publicly as a “hard no” include Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Eli Crane (R-AZ), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), Dan Bishop (R-NC), Cory Mills (R-FL), Tony Gonzales (R-TX), Tim Burchett (R-TN), Matt Rosendale (R-MT), Andy Ogles (R-TN), Tim Burchett (R-TN), Victoria Spartz (R-IN), and Wesley Hunt (R-TX).
So far, the House has passed just one of its 12 appropriations bills after GOP leaders canceled votes on the defense bill due to a lack of support among hard-line conservatives. Several of those who held up the DOD appropriations bill are the same members now opposing the continuing resolution proposal.
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However, McCarthy said that intraparty opposition would no longer hinder progress on the floor, telling reporters on Monday the defense spending bill would be brought up for a vote this week “regardless.”
“There’s not one member who told me anything in the DOD bill they oppose,” McCarthy said. “I don’t know if they’re just opposed to moving individual bills or what, but that’s not a good, strong place or position to be in.”
