House Republicans dare colleagues to vote against spending measure to keep government open

A coalition of House Republicans has negotiated a stopgap budget-cutting measure to keep the government open and is daring GOP colleagues to vote against it.

The measure was hammered out by members of the House Freedom Caucus and Republican Main Street Caucus, and a vote is expected on Thursday.

Their proposal includes an 8% cut to non-defense discretionary spending for 30 days, fully funding disaster relief, and includes parts of the Secure the Border Act — a measure that House Freedom Caucus lawmakers have said is a priority for their support on a continuing resolution to keep the government open.

Even with the border security measure, some members of the Freedom Caucus are still pledging to vote against the stopgap measure. So far, at least 18 GOP lawmakers have vowed to vote against the continuing resolution.

The majority of those against the measure are members of the conservative caucus.

House leadership opted to nix a procedural vote on the continuing resolution that was slated for Tuesday afternoon, a sign that GOP leaders do not have the votes needed to advance the measure.

They took the same move last week with the annual defense spending bill. That means with 11 days until the end of the fiscal year, the House has advanced only one spending measure, making a continuing resolution a necessity to keep the government open and to complete work on longer-term appropriations bills for fiscal 2024.

Freedom Caucus member Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, one of six lawmakers who brokered the deal, said his colleagues would have a lot of explaining to do if they vote against it.

“Go explain that you’re voting against a 30-day, 8% cut to the federal bureaucracy while having a piece of legislation attached to it that is the strongest border legislation ever passed, and it was passed out of this House Republican conference,” Mr. Roy said.

The federal government would shut down partially if Congress doesn’t approve temporary funding by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. Lawmakers rebelling against the only proposal to prevent a government shutdown are putting House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California into a difficult position of trying to muster votes while having a narrow, five-member majority.

Main Street Caucus Chair Rep. Dusty Johnson, South Dakota Republican, said he has spoken with lawmakers who were initially skeptical of the measure “largely because of misinformation.”

“On Thursday, I’m going to vote to cut the government and I will vote to secure the border. I would imagine that would be a very hard vote for other Republicans to break with,” Mr. Johnson said.

House Democrats are likely to vote en masse against the measure because of the border bill, and the legislation is all but dead on arrival in the Democrat-led Senate.

The border measure includes ending catch-and-release programs, restarting the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy and continuing construction of the border wall. It also includes provisions to hire more border agents and increases collection of DNA from migrants.

Notably absent from the stopgap measure is the E-Verify provision, which would have made the E-Verify work authorization platform mandatory for businesses.

That omission has caused some House Republicans, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, to oppose the overall measure.

Also absent from the measure is President Biden’s $24 billion request for more Ukraine funding, which means that if the House is able to advance the bill, it will likely be a nonstarter for both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate.

Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Republican, said there are two paths for House lawmakers.

“One path is where we offer something and the American people can see what we stand for,” Mr. Perry said. “The other path is quite honestly accepting whatever the Senate sends us, which is likely to be 100% worse than everything and anything that we stand for, that’s the two options that we have.”

Mr. Perry said that he is engaging in conversations with members of his caucus opposed to the measure, and signaled that he would be open to making changes to it.

“My message is ’what is it that you’re interested in doing that you’re not seeing here and can we accommodate that?’,” Mr. Perry said. “And by accommodating that do we lose other votes to accommodate you, if we can accommodate you and keep the votes, lets accommodate you.”