WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson pulled a six-month interim budget from the ballot Wednesday, scuttling Republican efforts to show solidarity with their plan, which includes a provision requiring ID for voter registration in federal elections.
The budget bill that Republicans in the House of Representatives passed last week in the midst of a presidential election campaign in which immigration is a central issue had no chance of becoming law in the face of opposition from Democrats, a chilly response from many Republican senators and a veto threat from the Biden administration.
A number of Republican Party members of the House of Representatives had also spoken out against the legislation.
Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told reporters that lawmakers would work through the weekend to find a path for the stopgap budget authorization bill and to find language requiring proof of U.S. citizenship for voter registration.
“There is no vote today because we are trying to find consensus here in Congress; with a narrow majority, that’s just the way it is,” he said. “We are having deep discussions, family discussions within the Republican Conference, and I believe we will get it done.”
Johnson said Congress has “two main commitments right now.”
One option is to provide the government with the necessary funds before the start of the recent fiscal year on October 1, thus avoiding a shutdown.
And he said the other part addresses concerns that it is possible that noncitizens could vote in the November election, even though it is already illegal to do so.
“We’re going to keep working on it. The Whip will do the hard work and build consensus. We’re going to be working on it all weekend,” Johnson told reporters. “And I want every member of Congress, regardless of party, to explain to the American people why we should not ensure that only American citizens can vote in U.S. elections.”
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump published on social media On Tuesday, he said Republicans should not approve any short-term spending measure without the accompanying voter ID bill.
Connecticut House Representative Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, called for bipartisan negotiations after it was announced that Johnson had withdrawn the vote.
