House Republicans closed out the week by canceling votes on two party-line funding bills in the span of 48 hours, a setback for new Speaker Mike Johnson and a sign of persisting dysfunction in the chamber ahead of a key funding deadline.
They pulled a transportation-housing bill late Tuesday as some coastal Republicans opposed cuts to Amtrak. And they yanked a financial services and general government measure on Thursday morning that included divisive anti-abortion language.
It’s a step backward for Johnson, R-La., who had hoped to show progress on appropriations bills championed by his party’s conservative wing in order to secure their votes to pass a short-term bill that would keep the government open beyond the Nov. 17 deadline.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
This week, Johnson held multiple meetings with groups of rank-and-file Republicans about a path forward on a short-term funding bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR.
Republicans said Johnson will need to make a call on a CR strategy by Friday to abide by the 72-hour rule, which gives lawmakers sufficient time to read the legislation before voting on it early next week.
Like the financial services measure, several of the remaining House appropriations bills have anti-abortion provisions, which could make it similarly difficult to win the votes of politically endangered Republicans.
The issue has sparked fresh anxiety within the GOP after another poor election night earlier this week in which voters in a diverse array of states punished the party for its hard-line opposition to legal abortion.
Before they pulled the financial services bill on Thursday, 165 Republicans voted for an amendment by Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., to cut White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s salary to $1.
Conservatives also were furious over the failure of another amendment — authored by a key Trump ally, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. — that would have barred funding to acquire property for the new planned FBI headquarters.
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