The House on Wednesday is slated to vote on a package of six fiscal year 2024 spending bills, the first full-year bills to come up for a vote more than five months into the fiscal year.
The measure is expected to come up under a suspension of the rules, denying conservatives the chance to sink it on a procedural vote, and looks likely to pass.
But conservatives are expressing outrage over the price tag, the exclusion of a number of policy priorities, the packaging of six bills together and the decision to bring it up under suspension. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has endorsed the legislation.
Republicans are scheduled to hold a meeting this morning, with votes to follow in the afternoon.
Follow along for live updates below.
Perry steps in to defend Johnson
Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), a former chair of the House Freedom Caucus, defended Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Wednesday as he discussed their plan to fund the government and prevent a partial shutdown, which has come under sharp criticism from hardline conservatives.
During a press conference on Wednesday, a reporter asked Johnson — who ascended to the Speakership in October — why the House was not able to pass 12 individual appropriations bills separately, which was a key demand of members of the Freedom Caucus. Instead, the chamber on Wednesday is scheduled to vote on a package of six spending measures to avoid a partial shutdown on Friday.
“Washington has no muscle memory on how to do that,” Johnson said of moving spending bills individually.
He went on to argue that the minibus up for consideration this week is moving Congress away from the practice of passing omnibus bills.
“We said that’s not the way to run government. So it takes a long time to turn an aircraft carrier. And we’re doing that gradually,” Johnson said. “We’re forcing reforms, trying to force Congress back in to the mode, the statutory mode, the lawful mode and the way in which it’s supposed to work with regard to governing funding. That means 12 separate appropriations bills, not all lumped into one.”
Perry then stepped to the microphone alongside Johnson, telling reporters: “As a member of the Freedom Caucus I want to remind everybody here that that all occurred before” Johnson won the gavel.
“Well thank you Scott Perry, thank you very much,” Johnson responded.
“We’re all, in a way we’re sort of victimized by the tradition that’s been developed in Congress and we’re working really hard to bend that backwards, right. And so you can’t turn an aircraft carrier overnight. So what we did was we broke the omnibus fever, we put it into the laddered CR approach, it was a new invention that Scott Perry and others helped invent, okay, to make this work,” he added, referring to the two-step continuing resolution conservatives spearheaded and Congress first passed in November of last year.
— Mychael Schnell
Bipartisan group pitches border-Ukraine bill as ‘pressure point’ on GOP leaders
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers is amplifying its calls for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to stage a vote on legislation linking foreign military aid with domestic border security, framing that combination as the only recipe for getting Ukraine assistance through a deeply divided Congress.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), the lead sponsor of the legislation, said he’s working directly with Johnson’s office to get the package to the House floor through regular channels. But if the Speaker refuses to comply, then the bill’s supporters will begin the process of gathering signatures — beginning as early as this week — on a procedural tool, known as a discharge petition, to force the bill to the floor.
“If the House cannot come to a consensus on a bill to be put on the floor, the alternative can’t be that Ukraine fails and our border remains open. We can’t allow that to happen,” Fitzpatrick said Wednesday morning during a press briefing in the Capitol. “So this is not a workaround of anyone or any post. This is a pressure point, to try to apply pressure to force something to the floor.”
The effort is a longshot. Discharge petitions rarely work — the last successful effort was in 2015 — and party leaders on both sides of the aisle have put up early roadblocks.
Former President Trump, for instance, is opposed to any new Ukraine aid or border security measures before November’s elections — a stance popular among House conservatives. And some House Democratic leaders have already rejected Fitzpatrick’s policy blueprint, preferring a bipartisan Senate-passed proposal providing foreign aid without the border language.
Still, Fitzpatrick and the other supporters of the Ukraine-border package maintain that it represents Congress’s last best chance of getting aid for Kyiv to President Biden’s desk this year.
— Mike Lillis
Conservatives left with few options as minibus heads to the floor
House conservatives are recognizing that they have few tools left at their disposal to enact deep spending cuts and controversial policy riders as a package of fiscal year 2024 spending bills — known as a “minibus” — heads to the floor for a vote that is poised to pass.
Asked where the House Freedom Caucus goes next in its spending fight, Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), the chairman of the group, said the conservatives will “keep battling.”
“You just keep battling every day, the fight goes on,” he told reporters Wednesday morning.
Pressed on what leverage conservatives have with the spending package expected to clear the chamber, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), a former chair of the Freedom Caucus, said: “We could vote no and say we could do better.”
The Freedom Caucus released an official position on Tuesday that urged Republicans to vote against the minibus — which includes six appropriations bills — slamming it for excluding some controversial policy riders, including earmarks and for moving in a package rather than individually.
But despite the frustration — which has increased since Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) first put a bipartisan spending measure on the floor in November that passed with more Democrats than Republicans — conservatives are not vowing consequences for the Speaker.
Asked if he has faith in Johnson’s leadership, Good responded: “I don’t have any comment on that.” Perry sounded a similar note, telling reporters “I’m not gonna characterize any of that, I’m just gonna talk about the policy, I don’t like the policy” when asked if he is frustrated with Johnson’s leadership.
— Mychael Schnell
McGovern shoots down Fitzpatrick Ukraine-border bill: ‘He should read his own discharge petition’
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the ranking member on the Rules Committee, on Wednesday shot down a bipartisan bill that includes Ukraine aid and border provisions, but no humanitarian funding.
He also dismissed the idea that the measure could be modified to gain support from more lawmakers.
“This idea that somehow we can have this open amendment process that the process does not allow for that,” McGovern told reporters Wednesday morning. “He should read his own discharge petition.”
McGovern said that Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick’s (R-Pa.) discharge petition allows only for “one self-executing amendment by himself,” limiting the debate around the legislation, which was introduced as a way to get military aid to Ukraine and other allies. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has refused to bring to the floor a foreign aid bill passed by the Senate last month.
A group of moderate House lawmakers unveiled the modified legislation in mid-February that would allocate $66.32 billion for foreign aid while having some border provisions, including a “Remain in Mexico” policy for one year.
“I don’t know how you can possibly move a bill, it doesn’t include humanitarian aid – what’s unfolding in Gaza and in Ukraine as well so, I mean, I couldn’t support a bill like that.,” McGovern said.
— Filip Timotija
Senate Dem to vote against funding bill over GOP gun provision
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said on Wednesday that he will vote against the government funding package over a Republican-backed gun provision.
As part of a sweeping government funding package Congress is set to pass this week, both Republicans and Democrats agreed to a provision aimed at allowing veterans who require assistance managing their benefits to be able to purchase guns.
Republicans pushed for the measure to be included in the government funding package, after a similar GOP-backed effort briefly slowed progress on funding last year.
While Republicans say the proposal was key to keeping veterans who need help managing their money from losing their gun rights, Democrats have sounded alarms about the impact the measure could have on veterans’ suicide rates, as well as the potential for those deemed “mentally incompetent” to have firearms.
— Aris Folley
ICYMI: House conservatives fume over deal backed by Johnson
Hard-line conservatives are up in arms over the bipartisan government funding deal endorsed by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), but heading into this week’s vote to prevent a partial shutdown, they’ve been forced to acknowledge they’re all but powerless to block it.
Members of the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus have urged Johnson to demand deep cuts in spending and scores of conservative policy changes — including tougher border security — as part of the two 2024 funding packages moving through Congress this month. Absent those provisions, they’ve pressed the Speaker to abandon the 2024 talks and pursue an alternate strategy to keep spending at current 2023 levels through the remainder of the fiscal year.
Johnson’s weekend endorsement of a “minibus” deal, which includes six bills that will fund a slew of agencies through September, essentially ignores the entreaties of his right flank.
The package excludes a number of the policy riders demanded by the conservatives while providing billions of dollars in funding over 2023 levels — an increase established by last summer’s debt ceiling deal between President Biden and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
The deal has infuriated the hard-liners, who are accusing GOP leaders of bailing on the party’s promises to use its House majority to bring fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets to Washington.
And the critics aren’t mincing words.
— Mike Lillis and Mychael Schnell
House Freedom Caucus urges Republicans to vote against spending package
The House Freedom Caucus is urging Republicans to vote against the government funding package coming to the floor this week, formally staking their opposition to the bundle of bills that are meant to avoid a partial shutdown on Friday.
In an official position released Tuesday, the conservative group slammed the sprawling package — which includes six bills and is known as a “minibus” — for its exclusion of some controversial policy riders, inclusion of several earmarks, and its price tag.
The hardliners also knocked the legislation for moving as a package rather than holding votes on each of the six appropriations bills, arguing that it is one half of an omnibus spending bill — the sprawling, typically end-of-year funding measures that Republicans abhor.
And they criticized leadership’s decision to consider the package under suspension of the rules, a fast-track process that requires two-thirds support for passage and eliminates the need to first pass a procedural rule — which the right flank likely would have tanked.
“The House Freedom Caucus opposes the $1.65 trillion omnibus spending bill, which will be decided in two halves, the first being brought to the floor this week under suspension of the rules,” the group wrote in a statement. “Even in the face of $34.4 trillion in national debt, the omnibus will bust the bipartisan spending caps signed into law less than a year ago and is loaded with hundreds of pages of earmarks worth billions.”
— Mychael Schnell
5 things to know about the spending package
Congressional leaders are sprinting to pass a sweeping government funding plan unveiled Sunday ahead of a looming shutdown deadline this weekend.
The 1,050-page package includes more than $450 billion in fiscal 2024 funding for a slew of offices including the departments of Agriculture, Interior, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs (VA), Justice, Commerce and Energy.
Click here for five things to know about the funding package.
— Aris Folley