September 18, 2024

Shutdown looms as stopgap bill fails in House

The U.S. House of Representatives failed to approve a bill that would have kept the government open until March 28. The bill included a provision prohibiting states from accepting voter applications from people who do not have documentary proof of citizenship, though laws already do not allow this. H.R. 9494 sought to prevent a government […]

Nicole Maxwell

The U.S. House of Representatives failed to approve a bill that would have kept the government open until March 28. The bill included a provision prohibiting states from accepting voter applications from people who do not have documentary proof of citizenship, though laws already do not allow this.

H.R. 9494 sought to prevent a government shutdown by the Sept. 30 deadline as the federal FY 25 begins Oct. 1.

“Given the state of the world and our approaching election, this is no time to shut the government down. That means Congress needs to act, and we need to do so today,” Rep. Tom Cole, R-Oklahoma, said in his opening statement approving the bill.

All 12 appropriations bills passed in committee and five have passed the House, Cole said.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Connecticut, spoke against H.R. 9494 stating that the resolution is a six-month continuing resolution which would put the next CR almost halfway through FY25.

“We should agree that it is not right, not in the interest of the American people, for us to punt this year’s work deep into next year, for a different Congress and a different White House to be confronted with,” DeLauro said in her opening statement against the legislation. “We must pass a continuing resolution that allows us to finish our work before the new president and Congress are sworn in, and which addresses the immediate needs of American families, workers and veterans, a continuing resolution that ends in December, rather than one that lasts half year better serves our national security and military readiness.”

No members of the New Mexico congressional delegation spoke during Wednesday’s debate but one issued a statement following the vote.

“Republicans would take paychecks from servicemembers, close Social Security offices and shutter National Parks to bow to President Trump’s demand to ‘in no way, shape, or form, go forward with a continuing resolution on the budget,’” Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, D-New Mexico, said in a press release.

Leger Fernàndez, who represents New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional District, pleaded with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, to “put the people first, bring us a clean government funding bill extension.”

HR 4949 would have also extended the following expiring programs and authorities:

the National Flood Insurance Program
the Department of Agriculture’s Livestock Mandatory Reporting program
DOD’s authority to use funds for certain military construction projects
the authority for states to use timber sale revenues received under Good Neighbor Agreements

The legislation would have given additional funding to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the Disaster Relief Fund.

The legislation failed 202-220 with 14 Republicans and 206 Democrats voting against the bill while 199 Republicans and three Democrats voted for the legislation and two Republicans voted present.

The government will shut down if a stopgap is not approved by both the House and Senate by Sept. 30.

The SAVE Act

The stopgap included the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or the SAVE Act, which would require voters to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections.

Aside from the potential for the SAVE Act to disenfranchise voters, it is also not relevant to appropriations, according to DeLauro.

DeLauro also called the SAVE Act including in HR 4948 “an extraneous, partisan, controversial measure, non-germane to appropriations, that guarantees this continuing resolution will not become law.”

President Joe Biden has said that if it comes to his desk, he will veto it.

“This continuing resolution (CR) would place agencies at insufficiently low levels—both for defense and non-defense—for a full six months, rather than providing a short-term stopgap to provide the Congress more time to work on full-year bills,” according to the Executive Office of the President’s Office of Management and Budget Statement of Administration Policy.

The SAVE Act seeks to require certain types of documentary proof of citizenship including a valid United States passport, official United States military identification card showing the voter applicant’s place of birth was in the United States, valid government-issued photo identification card issued by a federal, state or tribal government showing the voter applicant’s place of birth was in the United States, the SAVE Act states.

If the voter applicant cannot show they were born in the United States, then they would have to show another form of identification such as a birth certificate, an extract from a United States hospital Record of Birth created at the time of the applicant’s birth which indicates that the applicant’s place of birth was in the United States, a final adoption decree showing the applicant’s name and that the applicant’s place of birth was in the United States; a Consular Report of Birth Abroad of a citizen of the United States or a certification of the applicant’s Report of Birth of a United States citizen issued by the Secretary of State or a Naturalization Certificate or Certificate of Citizenship issued by the Secretary of Homeland Security or any other document or method of proof of United States citizenship issued by the Federal government pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act, the SAVE Act states.

The SAVE Act, itself, is currently in the Senate awaiting discussion and vote.