GOP leaders rely on Dems (again) to prevent a government shutdown

UPDATE (Sept. 25, 2024, 6:38 p.m. ET): On Wednesday, the Senate voted 78-18 to pass the stopgap funding bill and avert a government shutdown, sending the measure to President Joe Biden.

A couple of weeks ago, facing the possibility of a Republican-imposed government shutdown, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries shared an underappreciated point with reporters. “Democrats are temporarily in the minority but have repeatedly governed as if we are in the majority, because we recognize that our job is to deliver for the American people,” the New York Democrat explained.

Two weeks later, the accuracy of Jeffries’ assessment rang true anew. NBC News reported:

The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a funding bill to avert a government shutdown next week after it removed a proposal demanded by Donald Trump that would require Americans nationwide to show proof of citizenship to register to vote. The vote was 341-82, with all opposition coming from Republicans. House Republican leaders, facing defections within their ranks, relied heavily on Democratic votes to approve the short-term measure.

It was just last week when the House GOP leadership tried a far-right approach to preventing a shutdown, tying spending cuts to a far-right election scheme called the SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. That bill failed in humiliating fashion, prompting House Speaker Mike Johnson to turn to a backup plan.

This week, we learned that the backup plan was, for all intents and purposes, to give up entirely.

The temporary spending bill — called a “continuing resolution,” or “CR” — now heads to the Democratic-led Senate, which is expected to approve it quickly.

But as the dust settles on this unnecessary drama, it’s worth appreciating just how frequently House Republican leaders have been forced to rely on the Democratic minority to govern.

Five months ago, for example, Congress passed a long-sought security-aid package, but in order to advance the legislation, Johnson and his leadership team had no choice but to disregard the wishes of their far-right members and partner with the Democratic minority — which provided more than two-thirds of the votes needed to pass the bill.

This was not an isolated incident. Ten days earlier, the House reauthorized the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and it was the Democratic minority that provided a majority of the votes. A few weeks before that, the House passed a bill to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year and Democrats provided nearly two-thirds of the votes.

A month before that, House Republican leaders endorsed a stopgap spending measure and relied on Democrats to pass it. A month earlier, the House considered a bipartisan compromise on tax policy, which was endorsed by the House GOP leadership. It was nevertheless Democrats who provided most of the votes to pass it.

Two weeks earlier, a bill to prevent a partial government shutdown cleared the House, but roughly two-thirds of those votes came from the House Democratic minority.

The circumstances have become a staple of the current Congress. A year ago this week, to prevent a government shutdown, it was Democrats who provided most of the votes on a must-pass bill. Two months later, again to prevent a government shutdown, Republicans also relied on Democratic votes.

During the mid-November debate on that bill, Democratic Rep. Sean Casten of Illinois joked during floor remarks, “Next week, Americans will gather around their dinner tables and share what they’re thankful for. I hope my Republican colleagues will use that moment to reflect on how lucky you are to work with us House Democrats.”

A month later, when the House needed to pass the National Defense Authorization Act, Democrats again provided a majority of the votes.

And when Republicans threatened to crash the economy on purpose by leveraging the debt ceiling, it was — you guessed it — Democrats who cast most of the votes to pass the bipartisan solution.

As 2023 came to an end, Axios highlighted the underappreciated pattern: “Republicans may hold the House majority, but Democratic yeas outnumbered GOP votes on every major bill that landed on President Biden’s desk this year.”

In 2024, the pattern remains unchanged. A Washington Post report summarized in the spring, “If it wasn’t obvious before, it’s obvious now. The House’s governing coalition has been cemented. It consists of nearly every Democrat and about half of Republicans. The pattern was reinforced this weekend with a vote to pass Ukraine aid, but it has played out over and over again this Congress with the passage of major pieces of legislation.”

When Republican John Boehner was the House speaker, he too found himself dependent on Democrats when his far-right members didn’t want to govern. During Paul Ryan’s tenure, it happened some more. When Kevin McCarthy did the same thing, it contributed to the intraparty revolt that cost him his gavel.

And now, here we are, watching Speaker Johnson do the same thing, reinforcing the fact that one of the major parties on Capitol Hill is focused on constructive policymaking, and it’s clearly not the GOP.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.