The New Speaker's Dilemma

U.S. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) (L) hugs Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) after Johnson was elected as the new Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol on October 25, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/via Getty Images)

The current government stopgap funding made through a continuing resolution expires on Nov. 17, which means House Republicans have merely six more days to work out major issues that continue to divide the US Congress. With the election of a relative unknown as the new speaker, the biggest risk facing the GOP right now is a government shutdown.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson held a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, where he presented another continuing resolution with a two-step approach that would fund part of the government until Dec. 7 and the remainder until January. Another idea that was presented would be to pass a more “simple” stopgap bill until January that includes preferred conservative policies and stipulations. 

While there appear to be several different suggestions for how to temporarily fund the federal government through December, and possibly on into February, the issue still facing the GOP is the difficulty they will have in getting anything passed in the Senate once it passes the House.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) arrive for a bipartisan candlelight vigil with members of Congress to commemorate one month since the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023. (Photo by Drew Angerer/via Getty Images)