{"id":18552,"date":"2026-02-02T13:01:50","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T13:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-mike-johnsons-shutdown-gamble\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T13:01:50","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T13:01:50","slug":"capitol-agenda-mike-johnsons-shutdown-gamble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-mike-johnsons-shutdown-gamble\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: Mike Johnson\u2019s shutdown gamble"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

House GOP leaders face an uphill battle to pass the revamped government funding package from the Senate, potentially dragging out the shutdown.<\/p>\n

Speaker Mike Johnson hopes to pass the five full-year funding bills and the two-week DHS stopgap on Tuesday relying only on Republicans, after Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told him he wouldn\u2019t help secure the Democrats needed to expedite the legislation<\/u><\/a>. GOP leaders will have to quell an internal Republican revolt before they get there.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how things are shaping up ahead of Tuesday:<\/p>\n

\u2014 Democrats divided, Republicans seek unity: <\/b>Most House Democrats who spoke during a private caucus call Sunday evening were against the package<\/u><\/a>, which was negotiated by Senate Democrats and the White House. House Homeland Security ranking member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) was among the Democrats urging members to oppose it in a Dear Colleague email Sunday night.<\/p>\n

But some senior Democrats on the call said they supported the legislation, including Reps. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and New Democrat Coalition Chair Brad Schneider of Illinois, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss the conversation. The disconnect between leadership and other senior members is triggering some hand-wringing among frontline Democrats about what to do next.<\/p>\n

Even though some Democrats are signaling they\u2019d vote for the package in the end, it\u2019s not clear whether Johnson can get past the procedural step of adopting a rule with GOP support still uncertain and Democrats unlikely to bail him out.<\/p>\n

GOP leaders and White House officials are trying to convince key hard-liners to get on board.<\/p>\n

Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) are among the Republicans who want to attach legislation aimed at preventing noncitizens from voting in elections. Some ultra-conservatives oppose the Senate agreement overall and would prefer a Homeland stopgap that lasts six weeks or longer.<\/p>\n

Luna said Sunday night that \u201cthese appropriations bills will FAIL\u201d<\/u><\/a> if the election citizenship legislation isn\u2019t included.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Bigger DHS deal looks tougher:<\/b> Key lawmakers continue to raise red flags about striking a deal on a full-year DHS funding bill by the time the two-week CR expires.<\/p>\n

Johnson on Sunday panned Democrats\u2019 demands<\/u><\/a> to bar federal immigration enforcement officers from wearing masks and to require them to wear identification. He also signaled unwillingness to negotiate on tightening requirements for judicial warrants for immigration operations. Jeffries is insisting that an agreement on judicial warrants is \u201ca condition of moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune doesn\u2019t believe Congress can pass a Homeland Security deal in two weeks, telling reporters late last week that \u201ca two-week CR probably means there\u2019s going to be another two-week CR and then maybe another two-week CR after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think it\u2019s going to be really, really hard to get anything done and then actually execute on the procedures and process we have in the Senate, even if there\u2019s an agreement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

What else we\u2019re watching:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 Johnson to swear in new Dem: <\/b>Johnson plans to swear in Houston Democrat Christian Menefee before votes Monday night, pending final certification of his special runoff victory to serve out the rest of the late Rep. Sylvester Turner\u2019s term. Once Menefee joins the House, Johnson will have a single-vote buffer with 218 Republicans and 214 Democrats.<\/p>\n

Jordain Carney, Meredith Lee Hill, Mia McCarthy and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

House GOP leaders face an uphill battle to pass the revamped government funding package from the Senate, potentially dragging out the shutdown. Speaker Mike Johnson hopes to pass the five full-year funding bills and the two-week DHS stopgap on Tuesday relying only on Republicans, after Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told him he wouldn\u2019t help secure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}