Mike Johnson is about to embarrass himself and Republicans with another government shutdown fight

Speaker Mike Johnson pushed forward with his doomed bid to avert a government shutdown on Wednesday, despite clear signs that the legislation was unpalatable to both conservatives in his own party as well as Democrats who control the upper chamber of Congress.

The House was set to vote early Wednesday evening on a continuing resolution to keep the government open laden with giveaways to the conservative right. Those included spending cuts and a piece of legislation stapled to the broader package aimed at preventing non-citizens from voting in federal elections — something that is already illegal.

“This is the play we’re running,” the Speaker told The Hill this week. “I’ll be working around the clock to try to get it done.”

But his party headed into the vote secure in the knowledge that the bill as written would not pass the Democrat-controlled Senate, nor would it be signed into law by President Joe Biden, who issued a statement insisting that he would veto the legislation if it reached his desk.

As such, Johnson faces defections from his own party on top of near-uniform opposition from his Democratic rivals. The exception was Maine’s Jared Golden, who said he’d vote for the bill.

The government is set to begin a partial shutdown of services in October if a deal to pass a funding bill is not cut before then. Democrats are insisting upon passage of a bill that keeps funding for all agencies at existing levels, minus the Secret Service, which they say needs a funding surge in the wake of two attempted assassinations of former President Donald Trump in as many months. Some conservatives oppose this, citing the agency’s operational failures and claiming that the Secret Service doesn’t deserve extended funding because of