House GOP’s tanked vote signals tough path ahead on funding

House Republicans’ failed vote this week is exposing party divides on spending and underlines the challenges GOP leadership faces in its ambitious plan to pass all 12 annual funding bills by the end of the month.

Republicans were caught off guard by the tally Thursday, when 10 members of their party voted with most Democrats to tank a GOP-crafted bill to fund the legislative branch for the next fiscal year.

GOP leadership said the party’s goal remains to get the rest of the bills across the finish line this month, and they have already cleared four, amounting to more than $1 trillion in government spending. But potentially tougher bills lie on the horizon.

The legislative bill, the smallest of the dozen bills, funds chamber operations, the U.S. Capitol Police, Library of Congress, the Congressional Budget Office and other offices. 

But some of the Republicans who voted against the bill this week say they have a gripe with the measure over its proposed funding levels, which they say would amount to a $375 million increase in spending for fiscal 2025, among a list of other issues.

“The Department of Defense, military, gets about $1 trillion,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), one of the Republicans who bucked his party on the vote, said in a video explaining his decision. “Our interest on the national debt’s about $1 trillion, and this particular bill and this particular time didn’t seem, to me, appropriate because our new level of spending, if this goes through the Senate and gets signed by the president, will be over $7 billion for the legislative branch.”

“And that is a $375 million or 5.6, almost 6 percent, increase over last year’s spend. So, that’s a bit of a problem for me,” he said, while also taking issue with the sizes of increases for members’ representational allowances and the Library of Congress.

Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), head of the House Freedom Caucus, said he opposed the measure over the overall proposed increase, as well as the House’s failure to add amendments to block funding for electric vehicle charging stations around the Capitol and reduce funding “for the congressional physician who promoted COVID mask mandates.”

The bill, which only notched support from three Democrats, would face a difficult path to passage in the Democratic-led Senate in its current form. But its recent failure shines a renewed light on the challenges GOP leadership continues to face in unifying its party behind its funding bills, particularly as the party contends with a bipartisan deal struck last year to cap spending.

The failed vote overshadowed a press conference just hours before by members of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which crafts the annual funding bills, marking the last of the party’s 12 funding bills making it out of the committee this week. 

“I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that we have brought respect back to the appropriations process,” Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), a spending cardinal, said at the event.

“When you considered the fact that this is the 11th day of July … and we have now completed the markups on all 12 of our appropriation bills through committee, and a third of those across the floor of the House, with others to come soon, is a departure from the norm of the last 14 years I’ve been in Congress — and certainly over the [fiscal 2024] situation that we all endured.”

Republicans vowed a return to fiscal discipline and regular order upon reclaiming the House last year, with ambitious promises of passing all 12 funding bills across the floor and avoiding a massive year-end omnibus. But months of infighting over spending and divides over areas like abortion and FBI funding culminated in a new Speaker and two funding packages that many conservatives still opposed.

“They’re operating with a much narrower majority on the floor than we are, and we have difficulty sometimes just because people have conflicts, people get ill,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said of GOP leadership ahead of the vote on the legislative branch funding bill on Thursday. 

At the same time, Senate Democrats advanced their first three annual spending bills out of committee. The top Democrat and Republican on the committee also announced an agreement to increase funding beyond the budget caps deal made last year, setting the stage for a spending fight with the House in the months ahead.

Cole said that Republicans will instead “operate within what the law specifies,” adding that “if there’s any adjustment or change” from leadership, negotiators will “go from there.”

But Democrats on the House side also have pressed for further funding, while accusing Republicans of undercutting components of the larger budget caps deal made last year that were not reflected in the law, which could mean more funding for nondefense programs. 

The funding issue, and a list of conservative policy riders being pursued by Republicans in their fiscal 2025 funding bills, translate to little or no Democratic support on the floor for the bills — putting pressure on GOP leadership to lock down sufficient GOP support in the narrowly divided House to get measures passed.

Pressed about the party’s goals to finish voting on all 12 funding bills by the end of the month, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters after the vote Thursday that they’ve “scheduled that and we’re still working towards that goal.”

“We bring in four bills when we come back in two weeks, and we’re gonna have some more opportunities to pass additional bills,” Scalise told The Hill on Thursday, as lawmakers prepared to leave town ahead of the Republican National Convention next week. 

“The real question is going to be, with us passing in the House over 68 percent of government funding already, is the Senate going to finally take up anything?”