The government will shut down next Saturday morning unless Congress can rally around a funding measure by the end of the week, setting up the first big legislative spending fight of President Trump’s second term.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is set to move forward with a stopgap measure, also known as a continuing resolution (CR), that will run through the end of fiscal 2025 on Sept. 30.
It’s unclear whether the legislation will have the votes to get through both chambers.
Here are the three key groups to watch as the House and Senate prepare to tackle the issue.
Democrats
Johnson may need Democrats to back the measure in the House given the likelihood that some conservative Republicans will vote against it.
The Speaker has a tiny majority and can only afford to lose one GOP vote if all Democrats oppose it, assuming full attendance. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who frequently bucks the party, said last week that he would “vote against a clean CR that funds everything in 2025 at 2024 levels” for a host of reasons.
Johnson expressed confidence the measure will pass with GOP votes.
“I believe we’ll pass it along party lines,” Johnson told reporters Thursday morning, “but I think every Democrat should vote for the CR.”
Because the bill extends existing funding, the legislation will essentially fund the government at the levels set under former President Biden.
But Democrats angered with the efforts by Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) say they will vote against the measure anyway.
They have specifically pushed for the bill to include language mandating that the administration spend what is appropriated in the upcoming funding bill, which would force the administration to not make DOGE cuts that are not in line with the CR.
That idea was flatly rejected by Republicans, with House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) calling the idea a “nonstarter.”
Some Democrats in Trump districts who face tough reelection races next year may provide some votes for the bill, which could be crucial if Johnson loses some GOP votes.
In the Senate, at least seven Democratic votes will be needed to get the bill to the president’s desk. If the bill is approved by the House, however, it could be tough for Senate Democrats to reject it, since it would make it easier for the GOP to try to shift blame to the Democrats over a shutdown.
“We’re not assuming anything. We’ll going to wait and see what happens,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said about the possibility of the bill passing the House.
“You’re presuming two or three things that I don’t [think] you can presume,” Durbin continued, noting that their budget resolution passed by a single vote in late February. “It still passed. We’ll see if they can do it again.”
Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.) is the lone Senate Democrat to publicly say he will back the bill. He warned his colleagues it would be political malpractice for them to shut down the government, especially over a clean CR bill that the party has clamored for in years past.
House conservatives
The reason that Johnson may need some Democratic votes to pass the legislation is because some House Republicans may vote against it.
And since the GOP controls the White House and House and Senate majorities, division in the House GOP will make it that much easier for Democrats to blame a shutdown on Republicans if the House GOP can’t pass a bill on its own.
Many House conservatives oppose CRs on principle. They want to pass appropriations bills through regular order, meaning each separate appropriations bill is considered and amended, regardless of the looming shutdown threats.
This time around, those lawmakers — many of whom are in the conservative House Freedom Caucus — are expressing an openness to passing a stopgap, but noting that they will not make a final determination until they can parse through the particulars.
“I haven’t seen it. I don’t know that it’s a clean CR, so until I see it I really won’t have a comment on it,” said Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), a Freedom Caucus member.
“I would say that in order to ensure that the president’s agenda is accomplished, we need to ensure that the government maintains its function,” he responded when asked if he would be open to a stopgap at this juncture.
Pressed on whether a continuing resolution is the most logical option, considering the calendar, Clyde said “perhaps.”
It could be tough for Clyde and other conservatives to oppose a CR when Trump supports it. Trump has endorsed the stopgap measure, and he held a meeting with hard-line conservatives to discuss the bill at the White House last week.
“We had a great meeting with the president,” said Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), the chair of the Freedom Caucus. “The group of conservatives in the office with him all want to support the president’s agenda, and we’re going to work toward getting that continuing resolution in the form where we can pass it, just like we did last week.”
Defense hawks
GOP defense hawks in the House are another important group to watch.
These members are worried about what the CR could mean for the Pentagon.
In September, defense hawks led by House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) opposed a continuing resolution that stretched into 2025, citing concerns with the lack of an increase in spending for the Pentagon.
This time around, Rogers is leaving the door open — as long as the Pentagon receives the requisite funding.
“I’m not crazy about it,” Rogers told The Hill last week of Johnson’s full-year continuing resolution pitch. “I’ve been told that they’re gonna hold the Defense Department harmless, both financially and with anomalies, and that’ll get it out of the House, I don’t know how they get it out of the Senate, but I’m not leadership.”
“I’ve told leadership that I will not support a CR that does not hold the Defense Department completely harmless, both in its budget and with anomalies for new starts,” Rogers added.
Asked how his leadership responded, Rogers said: “They said that sounds acceptable.”
Defense hawks could be an issue in the Senate, too.
Former Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who chairs the subcommittee overseeing defense spending, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post titled “We cannot defeat tomorrow’s enemies with yesterday’s budgets,” detailing why a continuing resolution would be harmful to U.S. national security.
“The costs of deterring war pale in comparison to the costs of fighting one,” McConnell wrote. “If Congress is unwilling to make deterrent investments today, then discussion about the urgency of looming threats — particularly the ‘pacing threat’ of China — carries little weight.”
Mike Lillis contributed.
