House GOP unveils stopgap plan to avert government shutdown

House Republicans on Friday unveiled their highly anticipated plan to avert a government shutdown that is sure to upset Democrats and has already drawn skepticism from some in the GOP.

The 46-page plan would keep the government funded into March 2025, while tacking on language for stricter proof-of-citizenship requirements for voting, setting the stage for a budget showdown with Senate Democrats later this month.

“Today, House Republicans are taking a critically important step to keep the federal government funded and to secure our federal election process,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said after the bill went up. 

“Congress has a responsibility to do both, and we must ensure that only American citizens can decide American elections.”

Democrats immediately knocked the proposal.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in a joint statement said “avoiding a government shutdown requires bipartisanship, not a bill drawn up by one party.”

“Speaker Johnson is making the same mistake as former Speaker McCarthy did a year ago, by wasting precious time catering to the hard MAGA right. This tactic didn’t work last September and it will not work this year either. The House Republican funding proposal is an ominous case of déjà vu,” they said. 

“If Speaker Johnson drives House Republicans down this highly partisan path, the odds of a shutdown go way up, and Americans will know that the responsibility of a shutdown will be on the House Republicans’ hands.”

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) lost his gavel after putting a so-called clean, bipartisan CR on the floor to avert a government shutdown in the eleventh hour last year, only after attempts to pass a more partisan plan with cuts and border measures failed amid intraparty divides on funding.

Johnson's strategy to pair the continuing resolution (CR) with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act comes as Republicans have sought to seize on immigration and the border as key campaign issues heading into the November elections. 

The voting bill passed the House largely along partisan lines earlier this year, with only five Democrats in vulnerable races joining Republicans in passing the bill. 

Advocates pushing the measure say the legislation would ensure that only citizens can vote in federal elections, partly by making it mandatory for states to obtain proof of citizenship to register voters and by requiring states to purge noncitizens from voter rolls.

Democrats have fiercely opposed the bill, however, and the Biden administration vowed to veto when the House considered it earlier this year, noting it is already a crime for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. The White House also argued the bill would make it more difficult for eligible voters to register and increase “the risk that eligible voters are purged from voter rolls.”

Conservatives have also been pushing to kick the current Sept. 30 deadline for lawmakers to hash out fiscal year 2025 funding into next year, hopeful of former President Trump winning back the White House in November.

Proponents of the push say the move would allow Trump more influence in the shaping of much of government funding for much of 2025.

But critics of the idea, including those in GOP circles, have downplayed the impact such a strategy will have on funding talks. They also acknowledge the Democratic-controlled Senate is certain to reject the measure in its current form, due both to the timing and the addition of the SAVE Act.

Shalanda Young, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), knocked the "6-month CR approach" in a statement on Friday, while urging Congress to "quickly pass a bill to keep the government open and provide emergency funding for disaster needs across the country."

And Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement this week that a “continuing resolution that ends in December—rather than one that lasts a half year—is better for our national security and military readiness, veterans and their families, victims recovering from natural disasters, and all hardworking American taxpayers.”

“Let us hope the majority does not drive us straight to a Republican shutdown," she added.

The bill introduced Friday also includes funds for a number of other items, including billions of dollars for disaster relief, about $2 billion for "shipbuilding and conversion" for the Navy, and payments to the family and heirs of late congressional members. That covers payments of $174,000, the amount of the annual salary for congressional members, to the widows of Reps. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) and Donald Payne Jr. (D-N.J.), as well as the heirs at law of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas).

The bill does not appear to include language addressing the roughly $3 billion budget shortfall facing the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), after House GOP appropriators introduced a separate plan hours before to fill the gap.

Updated at 7:24 p.m.