Government Funding Plan With GOP Anti-Voter Fraud Rider Dies In House

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers rejected a ploy by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to combine legislation to fund the government with a right-wing bill attacking the illusory threat of illegal voting.

Johnson’s gambit failed thanks to unified opposition from Democrats, plus objections from a handful of Republicans who complained the bill didn’t cut government spending enough.

The bill’s defeat did not come as a surprise — Johnson initially scheduled a vote for last week, but postponed it amid warnings from several members of his own party that they would vote against the package.

Ahead of the failed vote on Wednesday, Republicans openly talked about a plan B, and Johnson himself suggested in an extended football metaphor that he would need to call another play after this one yielded no gain.

“We’re on the field in the middle of the game, the quarterback’s calling the play, we’re going to run the play,” Johnson said. “We have a thick playbook, of course, with all sorts of ideas in it. But when you’re on the field and you’re calling a play, you run the play.”

One outcome several Republicans anticipate is that Johnson will move a short-term government funding bill, known as a continuing resolution, without the voter fraud languageattached. Johnson himself refused to rule out passing a clean funding bill in response to a reporter’s question last week.

Former President Donald Trump, however, has repeatedly urged Republicans to shut down the government if Democrats won’t accept the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act.

“If Republicans don’t get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form,” Trump wrote Wednesday on his website . “Democrats are