House Freedom Caucus backs short-term funding bill to avoid government shutdown

Washington — The conservative House Freedom Caucus announced its official position on the upcoming government funding fight on Monday, urging House Republican leadership to push for a stopgap measure to keep the government funded through the new year rather than approving an overall new funding package ahead of the election.

With a Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government, lawmakers face a funding showdown when they return from their August recess next month. And the deadline is made more complicated by election-year politics. 

In a statement Monday, the House Freedom Caucus, a small but vocal group of conservatives that has complicated recent funding fights for House Republicans, urged GOP leadership to "ensure Democrats cannot undermine President Trump's second term with a 'lame duck' omnibus in December," pushing for a temporary measure to extend government funding into 2025. 

"The House Freedom Caucus believes that House Republicans should return to Washington to continue the work of passing all 12 appropriations bills to cut spending and advance our policy priorities," the caucus said in the statement. But if Congress is unable to do so in a matter of weeks, the group said, lawmakers should use a continuing resolution to extend the government funding deadline into the new year "to avoid a lame duck omnibus that preserves Democrat spending and policies well into the next administration."

A continuing resolution to keep the government funded has been widely anticipated, with a long road ahead to approve the 12 appropriations bills to keep the government funded on Oct. 1. But how long the temporary measure would keep the government funded remains undetermined. And with election season getting into full swing, appropriations work often becomes less of a priority, while lawmakers are sometimes reluctant to approve new spending bills before a possible shift in party control of the House, Senate and White House.

The Freedom Caucus also said that the continuing resolution should include legislation that prevents non-citizens from voting, an issue that Republicans have highlighted in recent months despite only U.S. citizens being eligible to vote in federal elections. The Freedom Caucus argued that House leadership should "use our leverage in the September spending fight to prevent non-citizens from voting in our elections."

The development comes after Congress' most recent spending fight was especially drawn out, and ultimately wrapped in March after lawmakers repeatedly relied on short-term funding extensions to keep the government operating while teetering on the brink of a shutdown on multiple occasions.