The Biden-Harris admin is stressed. They’ve got a critical decision to make.
As Congress just cornered Kamala Harris and Joe Biden with a massive ultimatum.
The GOP conservative House Freedom Caucus is setting the stage for a potential government shutdown unless Congress ties a short-term spending bill to legislation requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.
This faction within the House GOP is pushing for a stopgap spending measure that would extend funding until the new year, aligning with the hopes of former President Trump’s allies that he will return to the White House in 2025. This stance places them in direct conflict with more traditional Republican members, including House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., who has expressed a preference for completing the government funding process by the end of 2024.
With only six of the 12 individual appropriations bills having passed in the House and none yet in the Senate, a short-term extension of the current year’s funding levels seems inevitable to prevent a government shutdown at the end of the fiscal year on September 30.
Senior Republicans, including Cole, acknowledge that a continuing resolution (CR) will be necessary to keep federal offices open and avoid the furlough of thousands of federal employees. However, a statement released by the House Freedom Caucus during a six-week recess suggests a looming fiscal battle.
The caucus urged House Republicans to return to Washington to continue passing all 12 appropriations bills to cut spending and advance policy priorities. If that effort fails, they argue, any CR should extend government funding into early 2025 to avoid a “lame duck” omnibus bill that could maintain Democratic spending and policies.
“House Republicans should return to Washington to continue the work of passing all 12 appropriations bills to cut spending and advance our policy priorities… If unsuccessful, in the inevitability that Congress considers a Continuing Resolution, government funding should be extended into early 2025 to avoid a lame duck omnibus that preserves Democrat spending and policies well into the next administration,” the House Freedom Caucus said in a statement shared with reporters.
“Stop Illegals from Voting and Block The Biden-Harris Omnibus” pic.twitter.com/dPJ3Gh3GyY
— House Freedom Caucus (@freedomcaucus) August 12, 2024
The caucus also insists that the CR should include the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would prevent non-citizens from voting. The SAVE Act, passed by the House last month with the support of five Democrats, aligns with a call from former President Trump. However, the bill faces strong opposition from the White House and is unlikely to be voted on in the Democrat-controlled Senate, making its inclusion in a final CR a significant challenge.
Chairman Cole has suggested that a CR should instead include measures with broader bipartisan support, such as supplemental disaster relief funding. He expressed skepticism about the SAVE Act’s viability in a CR, noting that if a provision cannot pass the Senate, it would not be effective in a CR.
This 118th Congress has been marked by intense debate over government spending, with the House Freedom Caucus pressing GOP leadership to leverage their slim majority to push through conservative policies or risk a shutdown. Despite this pressure, leaders on both sides of the aisle have indicated a desire to avoid the political fallout from a shutdown, especially so close to the November elections.
The previous year’s spending battle led to the ousting of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., by a small group of his GOP colleagues after he supported a “clean” short-term funding extension in September. This year’s negotiations are likely to be equally contentious as the House Freedom Caucus continues to push its agenda, setting up a potential showdown in the coming weeks.
Freedom Caucus Comfortable In The Chaos
The House Freedom Caucus is certainly no stranger to trying to throw a wrench in the status quo plans of Congress and all of Washington, D.C.
It was the House Freedom Caucus that was instrumental in the removal of Kevin McCarthy as the Speaker of the House. In September of 2023, the Freedom Caucus warned Kevin McCarthy not to work with Democrats to get spending bills passed that some conservative GOP members believe is worsening the debt crisis hanging over the heads of Americans.
Shortly after that warning, Kevin McCarthy announced that he had reached a deal with the Democrats to pass a short-term spending bill. It didn’t take long after that for members in the House Freedom Caucus to follow through on their promise to kick McCarthy out for betraying conservative voters and passing yet another big spending bill.
Then on October 2nd 2023, Republican U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz officially filed to vacate the House Speaker role that Kevin McCarthy held, and the vote was successful with virtually unanimous GOP support.
The House Freedom Caucus is hoping their strategy of putting up a hard ultimatum will make this upcoming spending bill debate fall in their favor when the dust settles.
Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
