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\n

Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a>\u2019s efforts to pass a short-term spending bill before Friday\u2019s shutdown deadline should\u2019ve been fairly straightforward. Instead, it has turned into yet another test of his ability to steer a chaotic conference as he embraces an ambitious agenda next year.<\/p>\n

Johnson and his team are working to minimize GOP defections while keeping enough Democratic support, since he can\u2019t pass the funding extension with only Republican votes. But a demand for farm aid from Republicans in agriculture-heavy districts<\/a> is complicating the negotiations, prompting Democrats to ask for additional concessions and fueling conservative ire over increased spending. <\/p>\n

Those hardliners likely wouldn\u2019t vote for a stopgap spending bill regardless, but if they\u2019re angry enough it could cause problems for Johnson on Jan. 3, when he will need nearly unanimous GOP support in order to maintain the speakership. <\/p>\n

Johnson already tried to appease ultraconservatives, but the move inflamed the farm-district Republicans; he shot down their ask last Tuesday to fund the economic aid via conservation money in Democrats\u2019 partisan Inflation Reduction Act. Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell held firm on that position in the Friday night talks. That triggered those GOP lawmakers to publicly and privately threaten to vote against the final funding stopgap if it doesn\u2019t include billions in economic assistance for farmers. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a must-have,\u201d said House Agriculture Chair G.T. Thompson. He and others argue they need to pass additional economic aid to protect struggling farmers against a new wave of bankruptcies and financial pain in rural America, where the majority of voters supported Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Thompson said that he was \u201cpleased with the conversations\u201d happening now, after leadership talks over the matter blew up overnight on Dec. 13. Johnson\u2019s team spent the weekend quietly trying to hold off a massive wave of farm district Republican opposition to the funding measure. Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said Monday that the \u201cdifferences are narrowing.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re working through it. I\u2019m optimistic,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Still, it\u2019s a bad sign for Republicans in the next Congress. Unlike a funding punt, negotiations over ambitious, party-line bills on the border, taxes and energy are already expected to get extremely complicated. Despite Trump coming to the White House and Republicans taking control of the Senate, Johnson will still have a tough job as he navigates the demands of a diverse conference on several high-priority campaign issues with virtually no room for error.<\/p>\n

\u201cNext year is going to be fun,\u201d a GOP aide involved in the funding talks said wryly, granted anonymity to speak candidly.<\/p>\n

For now, GOP leaders have told lawmakers that Johnson wants to pass the entire government funding measure and separate supplemental disaster package together, via a process called suspension<\/a>. But that process requires a two-thirds majority, which means Johnson needs all the backing he can get, not just from his own party, but also from Democrats. And Johnson\u2019s antagonists will be watching closely to see if he can get a majority of Republicans to vote for the ultimate spending deal, which is viewed as a key test of leadership\u2019s support within the GOP ranks.<\/p>\n

Hardliners are already largely opposed to the farm bill extension that leaders want to attach to the stopgap<\/a>, arguing Congress needs to slash farm subsidies and other spending. That group is now leaning on Johnson to reject any new spending in the funding stopgap, as his speakership hangs in the balance.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdding things to the farm bill, I know farmers are hurting, but where is this coming from?\u201d Freedom Caucus member Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said.<\/p>\n

GOP leaders already weren\u2019t counting on several of those conservatives to vote for the funding deal, as they typically take a principled stance against stopgaps. If Johnson loses more GOP votes, he\u2019ll have to bend to more Democratic demands to push the package through Congress before Friday\u2019s deadline.<\/p>\n

Congressional leaders on Monday were circling a final funding deal<\/a> with $10 billion in economic aid for farmers as part of the agreement, possibly up to $12 billion depending on what Republicans agree to on Democratic demands in return. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told reporters Monday morning that leaders may be able to release the text of the massive bill in the coming hours, but he stressed that nothing was final yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo white smoke yet, still working through the final pieces,\u201d Scalise said late Monday morning.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s another demand Johnson is trying to balance. Farm district Reps. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa) and Don Bacon (R-Neb.) are behind an effort to insert a waiver into the spending package that would allow year-round E15 ethanol fuel sales. Conservatives, who overwhelmingly oppose ethanol subsidies, are furious at that prospect.<\/p>\n

Trump himself has a complicated history balancing support<\/a> for the ethanol and oil industries.<\/p>\n

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), an outspoken conservative who typically opposes stopgap funding bills and hasn\u2019t said how he will vote on the speakership, said Monday that the ethanol deal and other provisions should not be passed in the spending package.<\/p>\n

\u201cCall me crazy, but we should reduce the deficit and not pass stupid policies,\u201d Roy, a member of the Freedom Caucus, said on X.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speaker Mike Johnson\u2019s efforts to pass a short-term spending bill before Friday\u2019s shutdown deadline should\u2019ve been fairly straightforward. Instead, it has turned into yet another test of his ability to steer a chaotic conference as he embraces an ambitious agenda next year. Johnson and his team are working to minimize GOP defections while keeping enough […]<\/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-3745","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\/3745","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=3745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3745\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}