WASHINGTON, Sept 11, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - US lawmakers were set to vote Wednesday
on temporary funding to thwart a damaging government shutdown, as a rebellion
within the ruling Republicans piled pressure on party leaders racing to keep
the lights on just weeks ahead of the presidential election.

Government funding is set to expire at the end of September and Congress will
need a stopgap bill -- known as a "continuing resolution" (CR) -- to keep
operations open past the election because the parties are nowhere near
agreement on a full-year budget.

Former president Donald Trump has urged Republicans to force a shutdown
unless certain demands are met.

That would cause the closure of federal agencies and national parks, limiting
public services and furloughing millions of workers without pay just weeks
before the election.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson plans to call a vote later Wednesday on
a six-month extension, punting the shutdown deadline into March, when the
next president would be in office.

But he has announced that he intends to pair it with legislation requiring
proof of citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections, known as
the SAVE Act.

Trump, who dominates the House Republican group and continues to claim
falsely that he was cheated by voter fraud in the 2020 election, has lobbied
for Johnson to add the measure to the package.

"I would shut down the government in a heartbeat... if they don't get it in
the bill," Trump told Monica Crowley, a senior Treasury official in his
administration, on her podcast.

And he said in a social media post on Tuesday that Republicans should "in no
way" agree to a CR if they "don't get absolute assurances on election
security."

President Joe Biden's administration -- worried about eligible voters being
blocked from voter rolls or otherwise deterred -- opposes the SAVE Act,
noting that noncitizen voting is already illegal and that there is no
evidence that undocumented migrants take part in elections.

- 'Election integrity' -

Nearly 200 House Democrats already voted against the SAVE Act when it was
approved by the House two months ago, in a 221-198 vote.

Johnson does not even appear to have the support of a critical mass of his
own side and has said he has no fallback option if the package fails --
risking a shutdown at the start of October, less than five weeks before
Election Day.

In the Senate, the governing Democrats plan to strip the voting provisions
and give Republicans in the House an ultimatum: pass a "clean" CR moving the
funding deadline to the end of the year or trigger a government shutdown.

With the election less than two months away, vulnerable Republicans see a
government shutdown as disastrous for their reelection prospects.

At least half a dozen lawmakers from all sides of the party have come out
against the Johnson proposal, with defense hawks worried about military
readiness and fiscal conservatives always against stop-gap funding measures
that don't cut spending.

Republicans can only afford to lose four members on any party-line vote.

The spending fight is Johnson's last big test before he asks his lawmakers
for another two years at the helm.

He has argued that a March funding deadline would allow an incoming president
Trump to weigh in on spending if he wins the White House, rather than
approving the funding under a lame-duck Biden.

And he says "election integrity" is a unifying issue for voters and Democrats
will look out of touch by rejecting the proof-of-citizenship bill.

"If Speaker Johnson drives House Republicans down this highly partisan path,
the odds of a shutdown go way up, and Americans will know that the
responsibility of a shutdown will be on the House Republicans' hands," Senate
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement Friday.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries described the Republican proposal as
"unserious and unacceptable."