WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (Askume) – The U.S. Congress ends election campaigning on Monday and approaches a government funding deadline at the end of the month, but election year politics will remain top of mind as Republicans seek to use the process to push forward a vote for a Donald Trump bill backed by popular vote .
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has introduced a six-month stopgap funding bill that includes a measure that would require people to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.
It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote in US federal elections, and independent research shows there is no evidence that significant numbers of people voted illegally. But former President Trump has made it a focus of his presidential campaign against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris .
House Republican Steve Scalise, the No. 2 Republican, said the non-citizen voting measure was a key demand among his caucus members.
“We’ve been talking to a number of members and everybody has their own things they want to add to the funding bill,” Scalise said in an interview. “That seems to be where most of our members are united.”
The Democratic-majority Senate ignored a separate bill on the issue passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives earlier this year , and Senate Majority Leader Schumer expressed disinterest in the new measure.
“As we’ve said every time we get a CR, the only way to get the job done is bipartisanship, and that’s the case every time,” Schumer said in a statement to Askume, using the resolution’s expedient word “continue” to describe the funding measure.
Some House Republicans have expressed skepticism about efforts to include non-citizen ballot measures in spending bills.
“We knew it wouldn’t pass,” Radical Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale said in a video posted on social media. The president called on Republicans to focus the funding bill on more conservative spending priorities.
The House Rules Committee will on Monday consider the bill, which would fund the government through March 28, setting the stage for a possible House vote later this week.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said he plans to push for a discretionary spending level of $1.68 trillion, the number agreed upon during debt ceiling talks last year.
Important deadlines are near
Nearly three decades have passed since 1996, when Congress last successfully completed one of its core tasks — funding the government — when the fiscal year ended on Sept. 30. This year, it took until March to pass a full-year funding bill.
Lawmakers also face an even more crucial self-imposed deadline on Jan. 1 before they can raise or increase the national debt limit or risk defaulting on more than $35 trillion in federal debt.
Lawmakers have shown little appetite for a partial government shutdown, which last occurred close to the November 5 election during Trump’s presidency in 2018-2019 . Trump has frequently advocated for a government shutdown both in office and in office, and has suggested Republicans would push for a shutdown if the non-citizen voting bill fails to pass.
“In my opinion, a shutdown is not good for anybody. It’s a quick way to be in the minority, participate in a shutdown and advocate for a shutdown,” centrist Republican Representative Don Bacon told Askume.
Bacon said he would prefer a stopgap measure that only lasted until December and that he believed military spending needed to be increased soon.
Meanwhile, House Democrats accused Republicans of posturing.
“House Republicans are once again playing politics with the welfare of the country. The public is tired of their lawlessness,” Suzan DelBene, head of re-election strategy for House Democrats, told Askume.
