House Elects New Speaker; White House Requests Supplemental Funding for Foreign and Domestic Priorities
October 26, 2023
After more than three weeks without a leader, the House on October 25 elected Congressman Mike Johnson (R-LA) to become the chamber’s next speaker. Johnson, unlike the three candidates that preceded him, was able to unite the fractured Republican conference and secure the necessary floor votes to secure the speakership. The fourth-term congressman is a relatively unknown figure outside of Capitol Hill, but his conservative credentials are clear among his colleagues. He has served as vice chairman of the House Republican Conference since 2021 and is a former head of the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House.
Speaker Johnson will face a number of immediate challenges that are sure to test his leadership skills. For starters, Congress has only three weeks until the current stopgap government funding bill expires. With little to no progress made since the Continuing Resolution was signed into law, lawmakers will likely need to consider another short-term extension before current funding expires on November 17. For his part, Johnson has expressed a willingness to extend current spending levels into next year, suggesting January 15 or April 15 as potential options, depending on what the GOP conference would support.
In the meantime, Speaker Johnson has laid out an ambitious floor schedule for the coming weeks. Specifically, he is proposing that the House consider and pass the remaining eight (of 12) fiscal year 2024 appropriations measures by November 17. As currently written, the GOP spending bills in the House would significantly cut discretionary funding levels and would therefore be summarily rejected by the Democratic-controlled Senate. Nevertheless, passage of the measures would strengthen the lower chamber’s position during final budget negotiations.
For its part, the Senate this week struck a deal to move forward on a three-bill “minibus” appropriations package, which contains the chamber’s Agriculture-FDA, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development spending measures. As part of the bipartisan agreement to proceed, the chamber will consider more than 40 amendments on the Senate floor.
In other developments, the Biden administration has formally requested that Congress provide $106 billion in emergency funding to deal with the ongoing war efforts in Ukraine and Israel. The bulk of the proposed spending ($61.4 billion) would be reserved for military and economic assistance to Ukraine. The request also includes $14.3 billion in military aid for Israel, $14 billion for immigration enforcement efforts, and just over $9 billion for humanitarian aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Gaza, among other things. It’s unclear how the newly elected speaker will handle the White House request, particularly since Republicans are split on whether to send additional funds to Ukraine.
In addition to the foreign assistance, President Biden has requested roughly $56 billion in supplemental funding for a range of domestic priorities. As part of this second funding request, the president is asking for $23.5 billion to bolster the government’s response to natural disasters, with funding directed toward specific disaster recovery efforts and to help replenish FEMA’s disaster relief fund.
The administration is also seeking $16 billion to revive a COVID-era program that provided increased subsidies to child care providers. Funding for the program expired on September 30, 2023. Without additional federal resources, advocates have warned that child care providers would be forced to close or raise their fees. In addition to natural disaster funding and child care, the White House has asked for $6 billion to maintain initiatives that provide high-speed internet access and another $6 billion to fortify the nation’s communications infrastructure. The package also includes several additional requests, such as nearly $1.6 billion to combat fentanyl and $220 million to prevent abrupt pay cuts for wildland firefighters. While some elements of the administration’s funding package – namely disaster funding – has broad support, there will likely be significant pushback from Republicans for the rest.