Conservatives furious at Johnson for waiving GOP's 72-hour rule on $1.2T government funding bill
GOP hardliners are furious that Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., appears poised to jettison the House GOP Conference’s rule on giving lawmakers 72 hours to review bill text before having to vote on it.
Congressional leaders released their 1,012-page, $1.2 trillion spending package just after 3 a.m. ET on Thursday, less than 48 hours before the government funding deadline at midnight on Friday.
Two sources told Fox News Digital that they expect Johnson to hold the vote sometime on Friday. The speaker himself alluded to waiving the 72-hour rule, telling reporters on Wednesday afternoon that it was "not sacred."
It’s prompted a furious backlash from members on his right flank. Many of those same members have been calling for Johnson to leverage a government shutdown to extract conservative policy concessions from the Democrat-controlled Senate and White House.
"Would anybody do this for a car, for a house, for a toaster for that matter? It’s insanity at its height, and it's just a further deterioration of this country if we signed, if we pass this bill just because of the threat of a shutdown," Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told Fox News Digital.
"I'm very disappointed with this. I do not understand it… Other people that are not even in the Freedom Caucus, I think, are scratching their heads on this."
The bill would fund 70% of government programs, including the Pentagon and the legislative branch through the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30.
Both Republican and Democratic negotiators walked away declaring victory – Johnson touted cuts to funding for non-governmental organizations (NGOs), a 6% cut to overall foreign aid funds, and policies like banning the State Department from flying non-official flags at diplomatic facilities.
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Democrats cheered the exclusion of enforcement measures of the House GOP’s H.R.2 border security bill – something conservatives demanded in order to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – as well as increased federal child care funding and a $1 billion increase for climate and green energy programs.
Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., another Freedom Caucus member, told Fox News Digital it was "telling" that the text was released "at the last minute."
"The truth is that no one, except maybe leadership, who votes on this bill tomorrow will have had a chance to read it in its entirety. Over $1 trillion of hardworking American taxpayer dollars are being spent, and the appropriators don’t even know where it’s all going," Ogles said.
Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, quipped that it’s a "stirring break from tradition" that lawmakers have more than 24 hours before voting on the bill.
"It’s true we have a 72-hour rule that is supposed to set a MINIMUM standard, but that is especially violated for the most important complex bills – like appropriations," Davidson said on X.
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Former Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., said, "We’d have to read 1.72 pages per minute continuously to understand the $1.2 trillion in spending and over 1,000 earmarks to vote on Friday at noon. The system I fought to fix is now re-broken."
But a senior House GOP aide pointed out that many of the people raising objections to Johnson violating the rule are the same ones who were poised to vote against the package in the first place.
"There’s no point in appeasing these bomb-throwers – who have no plan of their own – when we are quickly approaching a government shutdown. Speaker Johnson could have given these people a month to read the whole bill. It would make no difference. Why should the country suffer as a result?" the aide said.
A spokesperson for Johnson blamed the rush on the White House delaying negotiations.
"House Republicans strongly support the 72-hour in principle and have worked around the clock to give Members as much time as possible to review bill text. Unfortunately, since the White House neglected to engage in serious negotiations on a full-year DHS bill until the 11th hour, Congress has no choice but to act swiftly to avoid a lapse in government funding," the spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Congressional leaders are referring to the package as a "minibus" because it separates the 12 individual appropriations bills into two six-bill packages, rather than one "omnibus" spending bill.
The previous "minibus," totaling roughly $460 billion in spending, passed the House and Senate earlier this month.