House Freedom Caucus sets its terms for September spending fight

The House Freedom Caucus is ramping up pressure on GOP leaders to back a short-term funding bill into early 2025 — seeking to punt major spending decisions into a potential Trump administration.

The ultra-conservative group’s official position, which requires the support of 80 percent of its roughly three-dozen members, is a preview of the spending fight Speaker Mike Johnson faces in September. Congress must clear a funding bill by Oct. 1 to avoid a government shutdown.

Lawmakers are expected to pass a stopgap that keeps spending levels steady, known as a continuing resolution, but it’s unclear if they’ll punt the fight to later this year or next. And there are conflicting strategies within the House GOP.

“In the inevitability that Congress considers a Continuing Resolution, government funding should be extended into early 2025 to avoid a lame duck omnibus that preserves Democrat spending and policies well into the next administration,” the House Freedom Caucus said in a statement, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO.

Government funding has been a perennial lightning rod between GOP leaders, including Johnson, and the right flank. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted last year after passing a short-term spending bill with Democratic help. While Johnson doesn’t face the same active threat over the September fight, his handling of it could be a significant factor in his ability to hold onto the House GOP’s top spot next year.

Over the summer, Republicans in the chamber passed only roughly half of the full-year funding bills, despite leadership’s goal to pass all 12 by August. Instead, facing intra-party pushback on the remaining spending packages, leaders cut members loose from Washington a week early for the extended summer recess.

While there’s still quixotic chatter of reviving those bills in September, lawmakers widely acknowledge that they will need a short-term funding patch to keep the government running. The crux of the fight will be over how long that funding measure will be — with November and December also viewed as potential stop dates.

Johnson will have to negotiate with the White House and Senate Democrats, but the bigger political headache could be managing divisions within his own conference. The Freedom Caucus is hoping to avoid a November or December spending deadline, since it leaves the door open to a massive year-end spending deal with a Democratic White House and Senate. POLITICO previously reported that Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.) and other members of the group have been privately pushing Johnson for a short-term spending deal that goes into March.

But members of the GOP leadership team, as well Republicans on the Appropriations Committee, are privately urging leaders to wrap up a sweeping spending deal this year — arguing that it would help clear the decks for the start of the next administration.

The stopgap bill won’t be the only fight on Johnson’s hands. The Freedom Caucus is also pushing leadership to attach the SAVE Act — legislation that prevents non-citizens from voting in federal elections — to any stopgap bill. That bill previously passed the House, with five Democrats voting for it. Johnson will almost certainly need more Democratic votes than that to pass a stopgap patch.

The Freedom Caucus argued that attaching the voting legislation would let them hammer the administration, including Vice President Kamala Harris, over what they feel is a potent issue heading into November: the border and immigration.

Democrats in the House and Senate, not to mention the White House, would oppose linking the two — upping the chances of a government shutdown. But it’s also the sort of hardball strategy that Johnson’s right flank has increasingly urged him to wield, squeezing the Senate to either pass GOP priorities or risk a shutdown.

In addition to GOP leadership generally shying away from those tactics, their negotiating hand has been undercut by divisions within their own ranks. They would need near unity to pass any short-term spending bill without help from Democrats.