House speaker risks government shutdown for racist bill—again

The House is scheduled to vote Wednesday on a stopgap funding bill to prevent a government shutdown on Sept. 30. This bill is apparently identical to the one that House Speaker Mike Johnson pulled from the floor one week ago after it was obvious he lacked the Republican votes to get it passed. 

On orders from the always noxious Donald Trump, Johnson tied the continuing resolution to the toxic SAVE Act. That legislation, which is based on a racist conspiracy theory that undocumented people are casting fraudulent ballots, is designed to make it more difficult for people to vote by demanding proof of citizenship from anyone registering. Republicans are counting on this difficulty to filter out voters more likely to support Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. The presence of the SAVE Act language in the continuing resolution means that Johnson can expect next to zero Democratic support.

However, Johnson’s problem up to this point has been inside his own party. Splinter factions of the GOP have declared this version of the SAVE Act not strong enough, claimed that the stopgap bill doesn’t provide enough defense funding, or announced that they oppose short-term funding bills on principle. It’s not clear that Johnson has made any deals that will get the bill through this time when it failed before.