Congress returns for another big spending fight

WASHINGTON — Congress reconvenes Monday after a lengthy summer break for what is shaping up as a pitched three-week battle over spending with significant consequences for both the November election and the next occupant of the White House.

House Republicans have named a politically charged price for agreeing to continue funding the government — legislation that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. It is their latest salvo in a monthslong effort to push the unsubstantiated idea that a swarm of immigrants living in the country without legal permission is poised to vote illegally and swing the election to Democrats.

But with a Sept. 30 shutdown deadline looming and a presidential contest on the line, lawmakers also are haggling over the calendar itself. Namely, how long to extend funding and whether the current Congress and President Joe Biden or those elected in November should be responsible for setting spending levels in 2025 and beyond.

Speaker Mike Johnson is preparing to bring to the House floor as early as Wednesday a six-month extension of federal spending through March 28, along with the bill imposing new rules on voter registration. Johnson, who said in a statement that it was the role of Congress to “ensure that only American citizens can decide American elections,” hopes to draw Senate Democrats into a fight over the demand for new voter registration requirements, despite scant evidence that noncitizens vote.

Senate Democrats are not likely to swallow that provision, which they call unnecessary since federal law already bars noncitizens from voting and driven by xenophobia. In addition, Senate Democrats and some Republicans on both sides of the Capitol would prefer a shorter time span for the interim spending bill, extending funding until the end of December as has been done in similar situations in the past. That would allow Congress to wrap up this year’s appropriations fight by the end of the year and let the next president start with a clean slate.

“I do not support having the CR go beyond December,” said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, using shorthand for the interim spending bill known officially as a continuing resolution. “We are going to have a new administration regardless, and they should be able to concentrate on the new budget year, not have to deal with issues involving the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.”

It is a view shared by top Democrats in the Senate, House and White House.

“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,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. “Let us hope the majority does not drive us straight to a Republican shutdown.”

The speaker has argued that pushing spending decisions into next spring would avoid the usual year-end legislative pileup that Republicans loathe because it can force them to accept catchall spending bills that include provisions they don’t support. It would also give former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, more influence to shape spending for the upcoming fiscal year if he is elected. The former president, who presided over a lengthy shutdown over immigration policy in 2018, has urged Republicans to shutter the government if Democrats balk at the new voter registration rules.

“I would shut down the government in a heartbeat if they don’t get it,” Trump said recently on a podcast hosted by conservative figure Monica Crowley. “It should be in the bill. And if it’s not in the bill, you want to close it up.”

If there is a shutdown, Johnson and his allies are hoping that any Democratic resistance to approving legislation to require proof of citizenship before registering to vote puts the blame on Democrats.

But Republicans have taken the brunt of blame for past government shutdowns, dating to Newt Gingrich’s speakership in the 1990s. House Republicans in tough races that could decide which party controls the chamber have been warning that they could face a backlash at the polls in November if the government is shut down just weeks before the election. Most believe that Johnson and congressional leaders will avoid such a scenario.

Like former Speaker Kevin McCarthy before him, Johnson has found himself pulled between the demands of far-right lawmakers in his ranks and the necessity of reaching a compromise with Biden and Democrats who control the Senate.

Johnson has ended up conceding ground but has not faced the same backlash that led to McCarthy’s ouster, which came almost a year ago after he compromised with Democrats to keep the government open past Sept. 30.

But that rebellion was not just weeks before an election that will decide control of Congress and the White House.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2024 The New York Times Company