Speaker Johnson faces conservative unrest over funding deal

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) faces a daunting task in getting a deal to fund the government over the finish line amid strenuous opposition from conservatives in his conference.

The Speaker, elected just a few months ago after his predecessor was tossed for working with Democrats to fund the government, is now himself likely to rely on the minority party in the House to get his deal approved over outrage from his right flank.

Johnson has a razor-thin House GOP majority and a tight deadline; the government will partially shut down if funding legislation isn’t signed into law by Jan. 19, while the Pentagon and other agencies would shut down after Feb. 2 without a deal.

The path to a Johnson win is expected to be a political minefield, even if plenty of Republicans want to avoid the chaos that engulfed the House in the October mutiny against former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

The top-line spending deal congressional leaders announced over the weekend includes a $1.59 trillion base top line, plus around $69 billion in budget tweaks to plus-up nondefense dollars for most of the 2024 fiscal year.

The House Freedom Caucus, which includes around three dozen members, wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the deal was a “total failure.”

Johnson recognized in a “Dear Colleague” letter Sunday that the spending levels “will not satisfy everyone, and they do not cut as much spending as many of us would like.” But he touted some wins on accelerating clawbacks of IRS funding, as well as a $6.1 billion cut to “COVID-era slush funds,” calling it “the most favorable budget agreement Republicans have achieved in over a decade.”

In an added wrinkle, several hard-line GOP members are calling for a government shutdown if the Biden administration does not agree to border policy changes — a debate that has largely been centered around separate supplemental spending package that pairs it with Ukraine aid.

Hurdle on procedural votes

One major question is whether Johnson will utilize a process that denies conservatives the opportunity to sink appropriations bills through a procedural vote.

Because House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and President Biden gave their stamps of approval to the deal, Johnson is likely to get more than enough Democratic support to make up for House GOP defections on final passage of the appropriations legislation.

But in the House, the normal process is to first pass a rule dictating terms of debate for the bill — which the minority party almost always uniformly opposes, as a test of party strength.

While it used to be unheard of for a majority party to sink rule votes, hard-line conservatives have repeatedly done so to protest other spending bills over the past year.

It was unclear as of Monday whether any Republicans would move to sink the procedural votes. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), who is unhappy with Johnson’s deal, told The Hill in a text message that he will wait to see the specifics of each bill before deciding whether to oppose the rule.

Party leaders can use a process known as suspension of the rules — normally used for noncontroversial legislation — to bypass the procedural vote and clear the bill with two-thirds support of the chamber.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in October, told The Hill that in a text message that some conservatives will “possibly” tank the rule if the appropriations bills are considered through regular order, noting Johnson will “possibly” have to bring up the bills under suspension.

Johnson previously utilized the suspension process to pass the two-step stopgap continuing resolution that set the Jan. 19 and Feb. 2 deadlines, as well as to pass the final version of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act.   

But those moves were sharply criticized by the hard-line conservatives, who would surely be unhappy with massive spending legislation moving though the suspension process.

Shutdown deadline pressure

With a top line now set, the race is on to write the bills that meet those levels and pass them before the funding deadlines.

Johnson has previously said he will not pass another short-term continuing resolution, leaving open the possibility of a government shutdown if Congress cannot meet those deadlines.

Jan. 19 is the funding deadline for government programs and agencies covered under four regular appropriations bills: Agriculture, rural development, and Food and Drug Administration; Energy and water development; military construction and Veterans Affairs; and Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development. All other funding, corresponding to eight bills, expires Feb. 2.

The House is currently scheduled to be out the week of Jan. 22, further fueling the deadline pressure — though Johnson could call members to stay in session.

The Speaker has touted the two-tiered stopgap bill as a way to break Washington’s tendency to pass massive omnibus spending bills, but his letter to colleagues did not specifically say there would be 12 separate pieces of legislation and votes.

Conservative policy priorities 

Johnson wrote in his letter to colleagues that the bills would “reprioritize funding within the topline towards conservative objectives, instead of last year’s Schumer-Pelosi omnibus” and give the conference an opportunity to “fight for the important policy riders included in our House [fiscal 2024] bills.”

But it is unclear which policies House Republicans will be able to pass.

Policy priorities in Republican appropriations bills have included targeting abortion access, cutting diversity efforts, and slashing salaries for Cabinet members — but many didn’t have unanimous GOP support.

New Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), policy chair of the group, suggested in posts on X that Republicans lost some leverage on ensuring their preferred policies by agreeing to a top-line spending level. 

Good lamented that the deal has “no significant policy wins.” Roy said he will “wait to see if we get meaningful policy riders,” but warned that the annual defense bill — which included a short-term extension of foreign surveillance programs that conservatives opposed — “was not a good preview.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) also said on X she would oppose the budget deal because it “does nothing to secure the border, stop the invasion, or stop the weaponized government targeting Biden’s political enemies and innocent Americans.”

Schumer warned against conservatives insisting on some of those policy riders.

“If the hard right chooses to spoil this agreement with poison pills, they’ll be to blame if we start careening towards a shutdown,” he said on the Senate floor Monday.

Border policy demands

An additional curveball is the demand from some conservatives to make keeping the lights on in Washington contingent on getting a deal on the border.

A handful of hard-liners have said they will not fund the government unless Congress passes substantive border reform, a vow that grew louder after Johnson led a group of roughly 60 Republicans to the border.

“The prerequisite for any budget agreement HAS TO ADDRESS the main threat to our national security which is SHUTTING DOWN OUR BORDER!! Without this, NO DEAL!” Norman, a Freedom Caucus member, told The Hill by text message Monday.

That ultimatum comes as a bipartisan Senate group nears a long-awaited deal on border security, after months of talks. The conversations began after Republicans said they would not approve new Ukraine aid until Congress addressed migration policies at the southern border.

Lawmakers had hoped to see a deal this week, but Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), the top GOP negotiator, said Monday it’s unlikely text would be released this week.

Regardless, a bipartisan framework from the upper chamber would be unlikely to assuage the hard-line House Republicans, who have been insistent on enacting H.R. 2, a sprawling border bill that cleared their with only GOP support in May.

And Johnson in a recent interview was noncommittal on bringing a Senate deal to the House floor for a vote.

“It’s a hypothetical question. Again, they’ve not sent me any of these provisions,” he told CBS’s “Face the Nation” in an interview that aired Sunday.