Republican “undecided” on Mike Johnson after spending bill passes House

What’s New

Republican Congressman Andy Harris has suggested that he is “undecided” about supporting Speaker of the House Mike Johnson‘s continued leadership just after a Johnson-backed temporary government funding bill, or continuing resolution (CR), passed through the House on Friday.

Newsweek reached out for comment to Johnson’s office via email on Friday night.

Why It Matters

Johnson, who will face a vote to remain speaker on January 3, has faced increasing criticism from fiscal conservatives in his own party during repeated attempts to pass a CR this week. Republicans will have a very slim House majority in the next House session and Johnson can afford little dissent in the leadership vote, as all Democrats are likely to vote against his speakership.

An initial bipartisan version of the CR pushed by Johnson failed on Wednesday following criticism from Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump. A Trump-backed version of the bill then failed on Thursday, due in part to conservative opposition to a provision that would have lifted the debt ceiling for two years. The version that passed on Friday removed the provision.

What To Know

Harris, chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, was one of 34 Republican who voted against the bill on Friday night. He characterized the bill as “unpaid for new spending” and suggested that his GOP colleagues might not really be Republicans while explaining his decision in a statement shared a short time later to X, formerly Twitter.

“Since President Trump’s historic election to bring down spending, deficits, and inflation, the ‘Republican’-led House has INITIATED $300 billion in unpaid for new spending, without even ATTEMPTING offsets to prevent skyrocketing the deficit and debt,” Harris wrote.

The congressman went on to suggest that he may no longer support Johnson and other Republican leaders, arguing that “future generations deserve better” while saying that he is “now undecided on what House leadership should look like in the 119th Congress.”

Johnson told ABC News earlier this week that he was “not worried about the speaker’s vote,” insisting that he was making “hard choices that lawmakers have to make” and would “have a new lease on all this” in January.

What People Are Saying

Republican Representative Greg Steube, expressing doubts about backing Johnson in previous comments to The Hill: “He committed to the conference a year ago that we weren’t going to govern by CRs anymore, and we’ve done five. And 43 days after we get a mandate from the American people, we’re going to work with Democrats to do stuff, when a Republican Senate comes in in two weeks?”

Republican Senator Rand Paul, in a post to X: “The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress . . . Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk . . . think about it . . . nothing’s impossible. (not to mention the joy at seeing the collective establishment, aka ‘uniparty,’ lose their ever-lovin’ minds)”.

What Happens Next

While Johnson’s future in Republican leadership is not entirely clear, he remains the favorite to continue as House speaker in January.

The CR had yet to pass in the Senate at the time of publication. Assuming that the bill passes and is signed into law by President Joe Biden, the government will continue to be funded for at least three months.

If the bill somehow does not pass before a midnight deadline, the government will shut down, putting federal employees on unpaid furlough and potentially impeding the function of numerous government departments and programs just before Christmas.