Speaker Johnson unveils short-term spending bill, urges members to avoid shutdown

House Speaker Mike Johnson laid out the next plans to avert a government shutdown in a Sunday letter to his members.

Johnson’s plan, known as a limited continuing resolution, would fund the government until December 20 and include $230 million for Secret Service funding.

“Next week the House will take the initiative and pass a clean, three-month CR to prevent the Senate from jamming us with a bill loaded with billions in new spending and unrelated provisions,” the Louisiana Republican wrote in his letter. “Our legislation will be a very narrow, bare-bones CR including only the extensions that are absolutely necessary. While this is not the solution any of us prefer, it is the most prudent path forward under the present circumstances.”

Government funding is slated to run out at the end of the month, and Johnson said in his Sunday letter that he does not want a shutdown weeks before the election.

“As history has taught and current polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice,” he said. “From now until election day, I will continue with my tireless efforts and singular focus of growing our majority for the 119th Congress.”

The top Democrats in Congress, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, praised bipartisan negotiations that led to a funding agreement “free of cuts and poison pills” and signaled swift passage of the stopgap bill ahead of the deadline.

“If both sides continue to work in good faith, I am hopeful that we can wrap up work on the CR this week, well before the September 30 deadline. The key to finishing our work this week will be bipartisan cooperation, in both chambers,” Schumer said in a statement Sunday.

Jeffries signaled House Democrats will evaluate the spending legislation as members return to Washington on Monday evening, but praised the negotiated legislation as “devoid of any partisan, right-wing policy changes.”

Johnson’s bill comes after the House failed on Wednesday to pass a six-month GOP government funding plan that included a controversial measure targeting noncitizen voting, an effort pushed by Donald Trump. The former president had called for a government shutdown if lawmakers cannot get the voting measure, known as the SAVE Act, passed into law.

Johnson said Friday that he believes Trump understands House Republicans don’t have the votes to pass the SAVE Act, a GOP-led bill that passed the House in July. The measure would require documentary proof of US citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, despite the fact that it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections.

This is story has been updated with additional information.