House GOP leaders released text Friday for a bill to fund the vast majority of the federal government from the start of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1 until after the midterm elections — bypassing the bipartisan appropriations process and daring Democrats to pick a shutdown fight months before voters head to the polls.
Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday he plans to put the legislation on the floor next week.
The measure would fund the government through Dec. 4 and, as Republican leaders promised, would not include additional policy riders or unrelated provisions.
The text released Friday also does not include President Donald Trump’s top policy priority, the partisan elections overhaul and voter ID measure dubbed the SAVE America Act.
House GOP leaders are instead planning to attach the components of the elections bill to several other pieces of legislation heading to the floor next week — though all of them are expected to later be stripped out in the Senate.
Ultimately the House is bracing for another drawn out fight over funding for immigration enforcement activities, given that the overhauls that Democrats have been demanding for nearly a year have not been implemented while Republicans passed multi-year funding for ICE and Customs and Border Protection in a party-line package in June.
Many House Democrats will likely raise issues over the “clean” continuing resolution given it won’t include any guardrails on ICE, according to five senior Democrats granted anonymity to share internal party discussions.
Two shootings this week by federal immigration enforcement officers in Maine and Texas have put a fresh spotlight on the conduct of federal officers and reignited calls from Democrats for changes to how agents operate in the field.
Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican up for reelection, called on the Homeland Security Department to “cease all non-urgent vehicle stops” after the shooting in her state, which the administration later did stop temporarily.
Some moderate Democrats are, however, likely to support the funding measure in the House next week after Congress has already endured two lengthy government shutdowns over immigration enforcement disagreements.
The bill text House Republicans released Friday also would include the traditional payments to families of lawmakers who have died while serving in Congress, including late-Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and late-Rep. David Scott (R-Ga.).
