Louisiana House Speaker Mike Johnson holds a press conference at the Capitol Visitor Center after the House Republican meeting on Tuesday, September 10, 2024.
Tom Williams | Chongqing Roll Call Company | Getty Images
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday canceled a planned vote on a stopgap funding bill that would keep the government open for the next six months after more than a dozen fellow Republicans dropped their support for the bill.
“We’re going to be working on this all weekend,” said Johnson, a Louisiana Republican.
“There will be no vote today because we are engaged in consensus-building with a slim majority in Congress,” he said.
The speaker and other Republican congressional leaders expect as many as 15 people in the Republican caucus to defect on the measure, according to NBC News. On Monday, only two Republicans pledged to vote against the bill.
The spending proposals would fund the government until next March. But it would also include a so-called “savings bill” that would require people to show proof of citizenship to register as voters.
Congressional Democrats have vowed to vote against any spending plan related to the SAVES Act. That means the bill will be dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Former President Donald Trump said Republicans should not pass any spending plan without the SAVE Act attached. The Republican presidential candidate also said Republicans should be prepared to shut down the government if there is no voter ID proposal in the spending bill.
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