'New speaker, nothing’s changed': Johnson unable to corral GOP colleagues as shutdown looms

10 November 2023

With the federal government just eight days away from a potential shutdown, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) is still no closer to cobbling together a spending plan that can both appease his caucus and pass muster in the Democratic-run US Senate.

The Daily Beast reported Friday that Johnson's plan to pass separate funding bills to fund individual government agencies — as opposed to a single legislative package — has fallen apart amid intra-party bickering in the House Republican Conference. First, Johnson was forced to pull a transportation bill due to New York-based House Republicans' concerns over Amtrak cuts, then the speaker pulled a spending bill for the US Treasury, the White House, and the federal judiciary after the House Republican Conference was unable to agree on funding levels.

"It’s the same. It’s the same set of issues. Again, the same tectonic plates," Rep. John Duarte (R-California) told the Beast. "New speaker, nothing’s changed."

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Even though Johnson was elected speaker via unanimous vote from his Republican majority, that majority has since fractured over proposed solutions to fund the government. Some of Johnson's colleagues want him to pursue a "laddered" approach, in which some agencies would be funded through December, with other funding deadlines being pushed back to January. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) proposed a funding package that would extend the deadline through September 30, 2024.

Members of the House GOP's far-right faction, like Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), think Johnson should use the impending shutdown to force Democrats to accept GOP spending levels and pressure them to increase border security funding. Roy also tweeted an implicit threat to the new speaker, suggesting that a "continuing resolution" (a measure to keep all government agencies funded at current levels until a later date) would be politically toxic for the new speaker.

"A 'continuing resolution' extending Nancy Pelosi spending & policies would be a disaster for the @HouseGOP," Roy tweeted Friday morning. "We have to cut spending & set up a border fight… Let’s hope the @SpeakerJohnson & GOP leadership will choose to fight."

House Democrats also don't have confidence in Johnson — a relatively inexperienced Congressman with no committee leadership experience prior to becoming speaker — to find a solution capable of passage through a divided Congress before the shutdown deadline.

"These Republicans are not fit to govern," Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts) told the Beast. "This is ridiculous, putting the country through this trauma every few weeks and you know, all the internal strife within the Republican conference. It’s just exhausting."

"It’s basically the same menu but a different waiter," he added.

Congress has until November 18 to avoid a federal government shutdown.

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