WASHINGTON — With a funding deadline looming, the Republican House speaker was caught between his far right and others in his party eager to avoid a confrontation with Democrats that could shutter the government and cost them politically.

His legislative gambits sputtered, leaving him facing the prospect of cutting a deal with Democrats that could prompt a Republican backlash. That was former Speaker Kevin McCarthy just one year ago, before he was deposed by his party, and it is his successor Mike Johnson today, less than three weeks before a Sept. 30 deadline to avoid a government shutdown.

“We’ve seen this movie,” said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., a senior member of the Appropriations Committee. “These are reruns.”

Yet this episode may have even higher stakes. McCarthy, R-Calif., was driven out of the speaker’s office for his actions, sustaining a personal and political blow, but Johnson has not only his job but potentially the fate of his entire party on the line.

Johnson Caught Between Right and Left

With congressional elections just weeks away, Johnson is caught between a hard-right flank that is spoiling for a fight with Democrats and more mainstream and politically vulnerable Republicans who have no appetite for a shutdown and fear it would tarnish them in the eyes of voters, costing them their slim House majority.

Complicating matters is the fact that Donald Trump, the former president and current Republican presidential nominee, is saber-rattling for a shutdown if Republicans don’t get their way in tying a spending extension to passage of a law requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. Johnson has personally embraced the measure, which Democrats vehemently oppose, and attached it to his stopgap spending bill.

But the plan ran aground this week, as it failed to draw support among the Republicans who would be needed to push it through. And though he has done so in the past, the speaker is evidently not quite ready to negotiate with Democrats.

“We’re having powerful conversations and family conversations,” Johnson, R-La., told reporters this week as he was forced to cancel a vote on a plan he called “righteous” to extend current government funding for six months and impose the voter registration restriction.

Democrats have balked at the proof of citizenship measure, noting that there is no evidence that noncitizen voting, which is already illegal in federal elections, is a widespread problem and warning that the new requirement could discourage some eligible voters from registering.

Johnson’s structural problems are the same ones that bedeviled McCarthy: He has a very narrow majority that includes rebellious lawmakers willing to defy the leadership and withhold their votes on must-pass spending bills.

“Mike Johnson was chairman of the Republican Study Committee that produced balanced budgets that cut spending and brought down the debt,” said Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, the Republican candidate for Senate there. “So he knows how to do this, and I hope over the next couple of weeks they put something on the floor that does that.”

Frustration Brews

The recalcitrance has frustrated other Republicans as they seek to wind down spending fights for the year and say if their colleagues want to insist that Democrats give them spending or policy concessions, they must give Johnson the votes he would need to push for them.

“I understand people don’t like to get jammed up against Christmas, but we didn’t get the votes for that,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., the chair of the Appropriations Committee. “Come on — you’ve got to give us the votes if this is what you want.”

The stalemate has left Johnson looking weak and House Republicans in the chaotic state that has marked much of their two years in the majority as they have struggled to govern.

It is coming at an inopportune time. Recent weeks have been consumed by a focus on Democrats and their push to replace President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket. But that fight is over, and Republicans are now in danger of being blamed for a potential shutdown just before the election, reminding voters of the earlier travails.

Once seen as a short-timer in the post following McCarthy’s downfall, Johnson now has a shot at keeping the speakership, but a shutdown could harm his party’s chances of holding the majority, while a right-wing backlash over spending could scuttle his bid to hold onto the gavel if Republicans do remain in control.

Many Republicans say that they sympathize with the speaker’s plight, given the political needle he has to thread with the coming election. They say they do not anticipate a move to oust him should he end up again sending must-pass legislation to Biden with substantial help from Democrats. They see his situation as different from that of McCarthy, who had troubles beyond the spending compromises.

Other Republicans charge that Johnson, whom Democrats rescued from an ouster bid in May, is merely making a halfhearted effort to push forward a conservative bill before he relents and makes a deal with Democrats.

“McCarthy’s effort to come to a spending agreement was genuine because his speakership was on the line,” said Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., one of the backers of an earlier unsuccessful push to depose Johnson. “Johnson was comfortable just feigning his conservative volley because Democrats have and ultimately will bail him out when he caves.”

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader, noted at a news conference Thursday that Republicans have only scored legislative success in the past two years by working with Democrats.

“We are simply asking traditional Republicans to partner with House Democrats in a bipartisan way to find the common ground necessary to avoid a Donald Trump-inspired extreme MAGA Republican shutdown,” Jeffries said. “That’s not too much to ask.”

The failure of Johnson’s first foray into avoiding a shutdown as of Oct. 1 has left it unclear how he might proceed; he said he wanted to use the upcoming weekend to try to build support for a plan.

Some lawmakers have suggested he drop the voting bill and propose a straightforward six-month funding extension in an effort to win over some Democrats. But many Republicans in the House and Senate want a three-month extension with no strings attached to give them a chance to pass their separate spending bills for the coming fiscal year.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Carl Hulse and Catie Edmondson/Tom Brenner
c. 2024 The New York Times Company