Mike Johnson's December nightmare
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To better understand House Speaker Mike Johnson this week, just look at what awaits him at the end of this year.
Why it matters: The most likely conclusion to this government spending standoff is an encore that threatens Johnson's chances of being re-elected as House speaker.
- He knows he's seven votes short but will still push ahead Wednesday with a vote on his Plan A. That's the six-month spending stopgap plus the SAVE Act, the legislation requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.
⚡️ Once his Plan A fails, his deputies have no clue what happens next. Johnson says there's no Plan B, but everyone in town assumes the end result is a three-month stopgap, no strings attached.
- One senior GOP lawmaker told Axios there's been "ruffling of feathers" over who's responsible for rounding up the votes. They expect more leadership infighting to flare up as they navigate subsequent funding fights.
⏩ Now fast-forward to November: If Republicans keep the majority, Johnson will be negotiating a budget while actively running for speaker.
- The current best-case scenario for Republicans is keeping a narrow House majority after the Nov. 5 election. In that universe, we'd expect Johnson to survive a speaker nomination vote in November.
- But then he'd have to navigate parallel whip counts — the votes he secures for a budget in December, and how getting those votes affects his support in the House speaker election in January.
- "Speaker Johnson is focused exclusively on responsibly funding the government, protecting American elections, and defending and growing the House Republican majority," Johnson spokesperson Taylor Haulsee told us.
The intrigue: One way to view Johnson's actions is that he can have some House conservative defections, but he can't have a Mar-a-Lago revolt.
- Former President Trump has called to shut down the government if the SAVE Act doesn't get a vote, so Johnson may be inclined to take a vote he expects to lose.
- Mitch McConnell isn't being subtle in the meantime: A pre-election shutdown would be "beyond stupid" and the GOP would be blamed, the Senate minority leader told reporters Tuesday.
