House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., talks to reporters as he arrives at the Capitol in Washington, Sept. 9, 2024.
Washington (CNN) — House Speaker Mike Johnson’s government funding plan is already crumbling with enough Republicans opposed to the resolution to sink it, and more warning the speaker will have to abandon his initial proposal to keep the government open.
At least six House Republicans have said they are against Johnson’s plan to attach a controversial bill to bar noncitizens from voting in US elections to a six-month government funding resolution, enough GOP opposition to block Johnson’s proposal given the party’s narrow margin in the House and that the proposal lacks support from Democrats.
GOP Reps. Greg Steube of Florida, Cory Mills of Florida, Jim Banks of Indiana, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Matt Rosendale of Montana have all come out against the plan – known as a continuing resolution, or CR – that is scheduled to be voted on Wednesday.
Steube told CNN, “I have never voted for a CR, and I don’t plan to moving forward.”
Banks echoed, “I voted against the omnibus. I’m not going to vote to extend bloated spending for six more months, to grow the national debt trillions of dollars more in debt. So it’s an easy no vote for me.”
Mills said Monday he informed the House GOP leadership team “I will be a no.”
While Massie and Rosendale posted statements declaring their opposition to Johnson’s proposal.
Several other hardliners told CNN that they have not decided if they will support the package, or vote no. Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona said that he is “undecided,” while Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said that she needs to talk to the speaker and see if he is really committed to insisting that the SAVE Act will be included in the deal.
“What is Speaker Johnson going to do? Is he willing to fight for this? And if he’s not willing to fight for it, why, why would we vote for it?” she asked.
“He needs to commit to us. Because, you know, conservatives like me, we have, we will not vote for a CR unless we know that we have a speaker, if we have a leader that is actually going to go to battle,” Greene said. “Otherwise, … it’s pointless. It’s really a waste of everyone’s time.”
To her GOP colleagues voicing opposition to Johnson’s plan, GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York told CNN, “Look, I don’t support everything. I mean, there were parts of the budget that I voted against in the past. But do we really want to be debating whether the government should be open before the election? I think we have the responsibility to ensure that it’s funded.”
Other Republicans who support Johnson’s plan say that lawmakers should be on the record explaining why they are opposed to the bill that would bar noncitizens from voting in US elections. It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote.
After GOP lawmakers started to voice their opposition to his proposal, Johnson appeared less confident in the prospects of his plan passing, telling CNN on Monday night, “We will find out” if it will pass when it is scheduled for a vote on Wednesday.
“We will have some more conversations tonight,” the Louisiana Republican added. “I am very confident in the principle of what we are doing and hopefully it will get across,” Johnson said.
Just hours earlier, Johnson was singing a different tune.
“Let’s see if they have the guts to tell the American people they want illegals to vote in these elections,” Johnson told CNN earlier on Monday about the Senate.
Pressed further, Johnson maintained, “There is no fallback position. This is a righteous fight.”
In a closed-door meeting on Monday with his leadership team, Johnson went even further.
“He made it really clear that this is the plan, this is what we are going with, he’s not going to entertain anything else,” GOP Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan said of Johnson’s posture in the meeting. “This is his line in the sand.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who has said Johnson’s proposal is a nonstarter with House Democrats, said Monday night, They “will not bend the knee to the extreme MAGA Republican effort to cut funding veterans, military readiness and senior citizens throughout America.”
Five House Democrats have previously voted for the controversial bill to bar noncitizens from voting in US elections that Johnson has attached to his government funding proposal, but it’s still unclear how the caucus will approach the vote this week.
Other Republicans say Johnson will ultimately have to abandon his initial proposal to keep the government open and instead put a clean extension of government funding on the floor, as this Congress has previously done to avert shutdowns.
GOP Rep. Mike Garcia of California told CNN that he anticipates Johnson’s plan will be scrapped and the government will ultimately be funded with a simple clean extension.
“If history is any lesson than the trajectory of this thing would suggest that we will at some point be either voting on a government shutdown or a clean” continuing resolution, he said.
And Garcia said he wants those intermediary steps to be more apparent.
“I want to see more detail,” Garcia told CNN. “I want to see what the follow up plan is. You know the devil is in the details. I don’t like that it’s a six-month CR. I don’t like that we don’t know sort of plan B, plan C, what step two, step three are. So I want to have those discussions within the conference.”
GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska said he supports Johnson’s plan but predicted it would not be the final version: “He may have more cards up his sleeve than I know.”
Given the opposition so far, GOP Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington state said, “There’s people coming out against it, so not sure what plan B will be.”
House GOP Whip Tom Emmer would not say if he thought House Republicans will ultimately stick together and pass their version of the funding package.
“Well, we’ll see. It’s the speaker’s priority. He’s leaning into it hard. We’re going to whip it, see where we’re at,” Emmer told reporters.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
