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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., conducts a news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center after a meeting of the House Republican Conference on Tuesday, September 10, 2024.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday cancelled a planned vote on a stopgap funding bill that could keep the government open for the next six months after more than a dozen of his fellow Republicans walked back their support for the legislation.
"We're going to work through the weekend on that," said Johnson, R-La.
"No vote today because we're in the consensus-building business here in Congress with small majorities," he said.
The speaker and other Republican congressional leaders expected as many as 15 defections from the GOP caucus on the measure, NBC News reported. On Monday, only two Republicans had pledged to vote against the bill.
The spending proposal would have funded the government until next March. But it also would include the so-called SAVE Act, a bill that would require people to show proof of citizenship to register as a voter.
Congressional Democrats have vowed to vote against any spending plan paired with the SAVE Act. That means the bill would be dead on arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
Former President Donald Trump has said that Republicans should not pass any spending plan without the SAVE Act attached. The Republican presidential nominee also said the GOP should be ready to shut down the government if the voter identification proposal is not in the spending bill.
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