House Speaker Mike Johnson Scraps Plan For Government Funding, Voter Fraud Bill

WASHINGTON ― House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has abandoned his plan for the House to vote on legislation pairing government funding and new measures to counter a phantom voter fraud threat.

Johnson had scheduled a vote for Wednesday afternoon even though members of his own party opposed the plan and it appeared doomed.

Hours before the roll call, Johnson announced a change of plans.

“No vote today, because we’re in the consensus-building business here in Congress,” Johnson told reporters. “With small majorities, that’s what you do.”

Johnson said Republicans would “work through the weekend” on their plan even though they had just returned from a six-week recess.

Republicans have such a small majority that Johnson can lose only a handful of Republican votes and still pass legislation without having to rely on Democratic support, and it’s not clear if any Democrats would have voted yes on the bill. Even if the House passed the measure, the Democrat-controlled Senate would have ignored it.

Former President Donald Trump has encouraged Republicans to shut down the government if Democrats wouldn’t agree to new election security measures, though Johnson on Tuesday refused to rule out allowing the House to vote on a clean government funding bill before time runs out at the end of the month.

The Republican lawmakers who opposed the bill complained it didn’t cut federal spending enough.

The main purpose of the new voting measures, which include requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration, has been to boost Trump’s false claims that Democrats will steal the November election with illegal votes from undocumented immigrants.

It’s already illegal for U.S. noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and they rarely do. And several Republicans told HuffPost this week that even if their voter fraud bill became law, its provisions wouldn’t take effect in time for the election.