Johnson faces frustration from hard-liners on spending issues

Hard-line conservatives in the House left Washington frustrated that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) didn't uphold his promises on pushing through spending legislation — though they did not necessarily blame him.

Johnson has now been in his post longer than his predecessor, who was ousted in part due to frustration with how he handled spending issues. But he is not closer to pleasing hard-line conservatives on spending matters.

“It's the same frustrations, you know, from last year,” said Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus.

Despite efforts from leadership to push through 12 regular appropriations bills as hard-liners wished, conservatives continue to use high-pressure tactics and oppose them over disagreements about policies and spending levels.

Though Johnson had pledged as he was running for Speaker last year that he would keep the House in session through August until all the spending bills passed, the House canceled scheduled votes for the last week of July and started August recess early.

“I believed that we were going to actually do something on the budget, on the spending bills. That's what we were told last year,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said. “When Kevin [McCarthy] became Speaker, that didn't happen. And we were told it's going to happen this year, and if it didn't happen, we're gonna stay through August. That's not happening.”

”Don't say that stuff to me,” Biggs added, “if you don't mean it.”

Unlike with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), though, the hard-liners seem resigned to the fact that their spending bill goals will not be met — and they are not necessarily blaming the Speaker.

“This is just kind of par for the course. So even though I am frustrated at this point, this is what I expected,” Crane said of the House leaving without passing all those bills.

Johnson, for his part, told reporters last week that the House could benefit from the break.

“We’ve had a tumultuous couple of weeks in American politics,” Johnson said, in a nod to the assassination attempt on former President Trump and President Biden ending his reelection bid.

“It's just a good time to give everybody a time to go home to the districts and campaign a little bit. We'll come back and regroup and continue to work,” Johnson said.

Johnson press secretary Athina Lawson told The Hill in a statement that the House “has made significant progress in advancing [fiscal 2025] appropriations bills.”

“The House Appropriations Committee has diligently moved all 12 bills out of committee and the House has passed 75 percent of government funding for the upcoming fiscal year while the Senate has yet to even consider a single appropriations bill. The House will continue its successful effort to responsibly fund the government for [fiscal 2025] when it returns from its district work period,” Lawson said.

Just as with McCarthy, how Johnson handles spending issues for the rest of the year has the potential to make or break his hopes of continuing to lead the House GOP next year.

A couple of members are already hoping to dump him.

“I think there should be a change in leadership right now, tomorrow, the next day. I would do it as soon as it’s possible,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.), one of two Republicans who backed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) effort to try to oust Johnson earlier this year.

But Massie acknowledged that he is “not a good litmus” for the rest of the Republicans.

Some hard-liners, meanwhile, say they see progress and are not necessarily angry at the Speaker for kick-starting August recess early. 

“I am frustrated” with the appropriations process, Freedom Caucus member Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) said. “I'm less frustrated than I was last year,” he added, citing “some incremental steps” in the right direction.

“Based on what we were seeing, it was probably relatively fruitless” to try to stay though August, Griffith said. “So, I think the Speaker made the right decision.”

And Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) was not eager to criticize Johnson in light of the spending bill snafus.

“I think Mike's been doing a great job in terms of getting [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] here, in terms of moving the SAVE Act, in terms of trying to keep us united and pushing [appropriations] bills out — you know, we'll see [how] all that plays out,” Roy said, referencing his bill that the House passed earlier in the month to expand proof-of-citizenship requirements to vote in federal elections. 

Roy did have some strategy suggestions, though.

He said that the House should have passed a stopgap bill to continue funding the government past Sept. 30 that was paired with his voting eligibility bill — a package that Democrats would surely reject — so that Republicans could “beat the crap out of” Democrats over August and say that they “don’t want to fund the government while they want to allow noncitizens to vote.”

More House Republicans are turning their focus to September, as members on both sides of the aisle acknowledge a stopgap will be needed to prevent a government shutdown.

The early fall deadline will also mark the one-year anniversary of McCarthy’s decision to force a vote on a “clean” stopgap funding bill in a move that helped lead to his unprecedented ouster shortly after. 

Johnson will face a bigger test from hard-liners in how he decides to stave off the shutdown threat. Rifts are already emerging over the duration of a stopgap as the 2024 presidential election cycle heats up.

Optimistic of former President Trump’s chances of reclaiming the Oval Office in November, many conservatives have been pushing for a stopgap that funds the government into next year. They say doing so would avoid the risk of being jammed with a massive omnibus spending package by the Democratic-led Senate and White House in December.

Other Republicans, however, have pressed for finishing funding work this year, as both parties are also beginning preparation for what could be another nasty fight over the debt limit, in addition to the expiring tax provisions from Trump’s signature 2017 tax law. 

“Different ones have different thoughts about it,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a hard-line conservative, said of the issue last week, noting he and others in the Freedom Caucus support a stopgap into March. 

“That's the debate,” he said, adding he “definitely” doesn’t want to see an omnibus. 

Mychael Schnell contributed.