CV NEWS FEED // A spending package backed by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, failed to pass in the chamber on Wednesday as over a dozen Republican lawmakers bucked party leadership.
The plan included the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act – a bill aimed at preventing non-citizens from voting in November’s election. Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump had supported adding the SAVE Act to the plan last month.
The spending bill failed by a vote of 220 against to 202 in favor. While 14 Republicans opposed the bill, a trio of Democrats, all in highly competitive re-election races, voted for it.
If the legislative package, referred to by The Hill as “a six-month stopgap bill,” had been approved, it would have averted a government shutdown at the end of this month.
Now, to avoid a costly shutdown, Congress has a week and a half to pass another spending bill by the September 30 deadline.
“Every single Democrat in the House, except for three, voted to approve of the runaway, irresponsible immigration policies of the Harris/Biden administration,” said CatholicVote Director of Governmental Affairs Tom McClusky. “The Democrats have no solution beyond more chaos, crime, and corruption.”
>> AUGUST 29: TRUMP SUPPORTS ADDING SAVE ACT TO SPENDING BILL <<
Rep. Don Davis, R-NC, Rep. Jared Golden, R-ME, and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, R-WA, were the only Democrats to break from the rest of their party and support the Johnson-backed spending package.
All three lawmakers are widely considered to be moderate or centrist Democrats. They are all running for re-election against well-funded Republican challengers in races many political forecasters consider to be “tossups.”
Golden and Gluesenkamp Perez represent districts that Trump won four years ago. Davis’ seat, meanwhile, was recently made friendlier to Republicans during North Carolina’s mid-decade redistricting.
On the other hand, several of the dissenting Republicans were members of the conservative Freedom Caucus.
In alphabetical order, the Republicans who voted against the bill were Rep. Andy Biggs, R-AZ, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-CO, Rep. Tim Burchett, R-TN, Rep. Eli Crane, R-AZ, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-FL, Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-TX, Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-CO, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-SC, Rep. Cory Mills, R-FL, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-AL, Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-MT, Rep. Greg Steube, R-FL, and Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-TX.
Many of these lawmakers expressed their support for the SAVE Act but stated that they voted against the greater package due to its nature as a Continuing Resolution (CR) – a temporary “stopgap” funding bill often criticized by proponents of limiting government spending.
In a message posted to X (formerly Twitter), Mace specified that despite her Wednesday vote, she was a “cosponsor of the SAVE Act,” and has “supported the SAVE Act since day 1.”
“But I’ve never voted for a CR,” the congresswoman added. “When I said I wanted to cut spending, I meant it.”
Rosendale agreed, posting on X the hashtag “#NeverCR.”
Steube noted that the House “already voted and passed the SAVE act, which Chuck Schumer has and will continue to ignore,” referring to the Democratic Senate Majority Leader from New York, who, along with his party’s caucus, blocked the Act in July.
Putting the SAVE Act “on a horrible piece of legislation that does nothing to rein in spending and continues liberal funding measures is not in any way an obligation of Congress,” Steube indicated.
However, Rep. Barry Moore, R-AL, who like Rosendale and Steuebe is a Freedom Caucus member, disagreed, noting that while he does not usually vote for CRs, he made an exception to approve the bill requiring citizenship to vote in elections.
“Tonight, I voted for a CR to fund the government for the first time because it included the SAVE Act,” Moore wrote on X Wednesday. “The only crisis more dire than our $35 trillion national debt is the flood of 10 million illegal immigrants the Biden-Harris Administration has allowed into our country.”
“Democrats want the non-citizens they’ve welcomed in to vote because they know Americans don’t support their radical agenda,” Moore wrote in a subsequent post:
That’s why we need the SAVE Act, which amends the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require proof of United States citizenship to register an individual to vote in elections for Federal office.
The Hill reported that Johnson, “shortly after the package failed Wednesday, stood by the decision to stage a vote on the legislation but told reporters he is already talking to colleagues about a plan B.”
The speaker went on to make a football analogy: “We ran the play. It was the best play. It was the right one. And so now we go back to the playbook, draw up another play, and we’ll come up with a solution.”
“I’m already talking to colleagues about their many ideas,” he added:
We have time to fix the situation, and we’ll get right to it. I’m disappointed. I know this was the right thing to do, and I think the American people are going to let a lot of the folks that voted ‘no’ tonight hear their concerns about it.
On Thursday, Schumer announced “he will act later in the day to advance a bipartisan government funding bill,” The Hill reported. This bill will almost certainly not include the SAVE Act.
“Schumer said the Senate now may have to act first to avoid a government shutdown, even though government funding bills are supposed to originate in the House,” The Hill’s report added.
Further reading: Republicans push SAVE Act after agencies give voter registrations to thousands of non-citizens
