Speaker Mike Johnson declined to say Friday whether he will keep the House in over the weekend to pass the Department of Homeland Security funding agreement the Senate approved hours earlier.
“Stay tuned,” the Louisiana Republican told reporters when asked if he was committed to passing the Senate bill, which would fund all of DHS except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and parts of Customs and Border Protection.
Already some conservative Republicans are signaling that they are in no mood to accept the deal, which senators passed on a voice vote in a mostly empty chamber just before 2:30 a.m.
“A bunch of cowards — they didn’t even take a recorded vote,” Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) said of senators. “This is not a done deal.”
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, told reporters his group would not support the Senate-passed deal before the House. Instead, he said, the House needs to add back the ICE and CBP funding, attach voter ID legislation and then send the bill back to the Senate — which is not set to return to session until April 13.
Johnson said he would talk through options and work the “will of the conference.” But every path before him is fraught.
He could move it through a party-line “rule” vote that would require broad GOP support — an unsure bet at this stage as GOP leaders expect a backlash from ultra-conservatives. His alternative would be to expedite passage through suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority vote — a move that could enrage GOP hard-liners who generally oppose moving major legislation with Democrats’ help.
Johnson is also hamstrung by the fact that the standing rules House members approved at the start of the 119th Congress does not allow the chamber to vote on suspension bills on Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
House Rules Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), chair of the House GOP’s campaign fundraising arm, met with the speaker Friday and other senior Republicans to plot a path forward.
House Democrats are set to meet after Friday morning’s scheduled votes to discuss the Senate bill.
Conservative House Republicans are livid that the Senate omitted immigration enforcement funding from the deal they passed before leaving town, but they’re also mad it does not include the GOP elections overhaul known as the SAVE America Act. Hard-liners are pushing for Johnson to attach SAVE America and send it back to the Senate.
“We want to solve these problems as quickly as possible, but we also understand this dangerous gambit about not funding the border, securing the border and the ability to deport criminal illegal aliens is a serious problem,” Johnson said.
Other House Republicans who have grown nervous about unpaid airport security workers and other DHS employees are itching for the chamber to pass the deal Friday.
“I hope they do,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) said.
Katherine Tully-McManus and Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.
