Speaker Mike Johnson has often relied on Democrats to accomplish the most basic tasks of governing — after all, House Republicans usually fought, bickered or blocked their own party’s agenda throughout the 118th Congress.
Now, he’ll have to rely on Democrats one more time before the next Congress begins. Far-right Freedom Caucus members are pushing back on Johnson’s tentative plan to extend government funding into March, because they say they oppose aid for states hit by hurricanes if the money isn’t paired with spending offsets.
“A lot of members would like to offset additional spending,” Rep. Ben Cline, a member of the Freedom Caucus, told NOTUS on Wednesday.
Even if Johnson appeases them — which would risk losing other votes — plenty of these same members can hardly imagine voting for a stopgap funding measure or a larger spending bill at all.
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When asked what provisions a spending bill next spring would have to include for him to vote for it, Cline said it was “a hypothetical that would be hard for me to answer.”
After pondering for a moment, he landed on an answer: whether it reduces the deficit or not. That’s a feat Republicans couldn’t manage the last time Donald Trump was in power, when they had a larger conference.
At the same time, Cline thinks Johnson should stop relying on Democrats to avert shutdowns next year.
“We’re in the majority, so we should be able to pass our bills,” he said simply.
The spending clash is just one headache for Johnson as he prepares for another term doing a job many Republicans wouldn’t wish on their worst enemy — managing a barely there House GOP majority. The current spat over funding demonstrates just how difficult it will be for him to find unity within the conference next year.
Freedom Caucus members are poised to have a say (and gum up the works) if Johnson’s plans aren’t conservative enough.
“Scott Perry is a majority-maker now,” Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida told NOTUS, referring to his Freedom Caucus colleague who won a tight reelection fight in Pennsylvania. “And if he’s a majority-maker, then I think we have an ability to be aggressive and actually get the job done.”
“Majorities are not for gavels. Majorities are not for chairmanships,” Donalds added. “Majorities are for answering the call of the American people to get the business done.”
Perry, meanwhile, offered his own view: “If we just do what we said we were going to do when we were campaigning, we’ll be fine,” he told NOTUS of the upcoming session.
By kicking this fiscal year’s spending talks into the spring, Republicans hope the final product will more closely reflect Trump’s priorities.
Members hope Trump can keep the conference unified, but they admit legislating with such a thin majority will be difficult.
“Most people that get elected to Congress aren’t manageable,” Rep. James Comer of Kentucky told NOTUS on Wednesday when asked about Johnson’s task. “They’re going to do what they think is best in their district.”
But, he said, “being in complete control makes people realize we’d better come to terms and govern.”
In addition to controlling the White House and the Senate, House Republicans will have 220 seats to Democrats’ 215 in the new year, fewer than the party held at the start of the current Congress. With Rep. Matt Gaetz’s departure, however, and with two other Republican members leaving to join Trump’s cabinet in January, that will shrink to 217 votes. Johnson will have no room for disagreement at all during the early months of the second Trump presidency, even as Republicans try to pass an ambitious slate of border security bills, cut taxes and slash government spending.
“217 to 215. It’s huge,” Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska said of the majority on Wednesday.
Still, Bacon said he hopes the next Congress will be more collegial, noting that three members involved in ousting former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2023 won’t be in the chamber any longer.
Rep. Max Miller of Ohio made the same point.
“We’ll find out,” he said when asked if Republicans can get along next year. “There’s going to be challenges no matter what. I think what’s an unfair assessment is to judge this Congress versus the last Congress.”
“You have new members of Congress that are coming in,” he told NOTUS. “You have individuals like Bob Good and Matt Gaetz who are no longer in this body causing the same amount of issues they did in the 118th.”
Republicans also want to use the arcane budget reconciliation process — which allows members to bypass the Senate’s 60-vote threshold for most legislation to approve partisan priorities with just 51 votes instead — to pass other GOP agenda items.
They tried using the same process to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017, when they had a larger majority, but they ultimately couldn’t pass anything into law amid fierce policy disagreements and public pushback. The party did manage to pass its tax package later that year under reconciliation. Those experiences taught members just how difficult it is to carve out consensus.
Members hope their planning conversations will make the difference.
“The speaker is pulling everybody together,” said Rep. Chip Roy, who has often argued for cutting government spending. “We’ve got a thin majority. We’ve got to figure out how to make it work.”
“To produce the agenda that the American people sent us to produce,” Roy said, “we’re going to have to have everybody in the room, and we’re going to have to come to agreements.”
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Haley Byrd Wilt is a reporter at NOTUS.
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