Dems see a big upside to Johnson’s conservative funding push

House Democrats were already attacking swing-district Republicans over conservative funding bills before Kevin McCarthy lost the speakership. Speaker Mike Johnson is giving them even more fodder.

The Louisiana Republican is staking his legislative reputation on churning through the full stack of a dozen annual funding bills, many of them including conservative riders like a national ban on mail-order abortion pills. By the end of Johnson’s first full week as speaker, House Republicans had passed three of the 12 spending measures, and he's hoping to clear another handful before the Nov. 17 government shutdown deadline.

House Democrats have hit GOP Rep. Mike Garcia, who won his Southern California district by a tenth of a percentage point in 2020, for supporting the spending bills. The nonprofit arm of House Majority PAC mailed fliers to Garcia’s constituents this fall, noting the funding cuts and claiming that “no family is safe from Mike Garcia’s extreme agenda.”

“These mailers are going out — and these hit ads are going out — based on a first negotiation position,” Garcia said in an interview, “which is probably more conservative than what we're going to end up with.”

That's a safe bet. The bills stand no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate or earning President Joe Biden's signature in their current form. And Republican leadership chose this strategy — rather than sticking to the funding levels set in the bipartisan debt limit compromise, they pushed forward with a slate of partisan spending measures, all of which eventually need buy-in from both chambers.

“It's the Freedom Caucus members who want these irrational policies and appropriations. So I think it's going to hurt individually," said Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), former House majority leader and a 24-year veteran of the Appropriations Committee. "The Republicans, because they have such a small margin, they've got to have almost everybody vote for it. So they can't let their marginal members take a pass."

Here are six spending issues Democrats are eager to exploit at the polls next year:

Schools

In mailed fliers attacking Garcia and New York Rep. Mike Lawler, House Majority Forward noted in late September that the GOP’s education funding bill could result in the firing of 108,000 teachers, school aides and staff.

“It's just very puzzling to us,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said in a brief interview, “that they continue to put their members in positions to support these terrible cuts that are not going to become law.”

The measure that funds the Education Department is so controversial that it hasn’t even been approved in committee. Under the new speaker’s direction, GOP leaders plan to send the measure straight to the floor, where Republicans could be asked to go on record in support of cutting the Education Department’s budget by more than $12 billion, or 15 percent. The measure would also cut funding by nearly $15 billion, or 80 percent, for the Title I grant program that helps schools that serve a high percentage of low-income students.

Abortion

Several controversial riders on spending bills are related to curbing abortion access. One of the most contentious — though it's a tough competition — is a nationwide ban on mail-order abortion pills, attached to the bill that funds the FDA and the Department of Agriculture.

The anti-abortion language has become such a problem that Johnson proposed a working group to resolve the issue, with the goal of passing the agriculture spending bill by Thanksgiving. But unless leadership removes the rider completely, Republican centrists are signaling they won't back it. Meanwhile, some conservatives have sworn they won’t vote for the bill if the federal curb on abortion pills is stripped, and anti-abortion groups are likely to keep pushing to include it.

The bill has already tanked on the floor once in September, and its author, Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), has suggested taking that funding legislation straight to conference with the Senate, rather than push it to another potentially doomed vote. Still, he's publicly dismissed concerns that the bill poses a political liability: “I don't understand that question whatsoever,” Harris said. “I mean, we were hired to come to Washington to actually pass appropriations bills. That's all we're talking about doing.”

Agriculture

That same legislation has problems beyond abortion. It would put GOP lawmakers on record in support of more than $1.1 billion in cuts to agriculture programs — reductions that spur hesitation from members in farm-heavy districts.

"We have some farmers who want X, that some of us aren’t sure about," said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas).

As Roy and other members of the House Freedom Caucus pushed over the summer for deeper reductions, Iowa Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra said he was “mortified” by some of the proposed cuts, arguing that further shrinking USDA funding would affect food safety and exports that farmers in his state rely on.

Before Roy's district was redrawn as a more deep-red seat in 2021, he was frequently the target of Democratic campaign attacks highlighting bills he voted to support. Now he has advice for his Republican colleagues facing tight reelection bids: "I took vote after vote after vote. And you know what I did? I ran on them. I ran on the tough votes," Roy said in an interview.

"If there's something we voted on that you didn't like, just say it," the Texas Republican added. “I'm not worried at all about my colleagues across the spectrum within the Republican Party."

FBI and law enforcement

The House bill to fund the departments of Commerce and Justice, as well as science programs, has also been too controversial to earn an approval vote in committee. The measure would cut the FBI’s budget by more than $1 billion, or about 9 percent, and reduce the Justice Department’s funding by more than 6 percent, while nixing several violence prevention efforts, including funding to help universities respond to sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking.

“Who's defunding the police now?" Pennsylvania Rep. Matt Cartwright, the top Democrat on the funding panel in charge of that bill, said in an interview.

LGBTQ rights

The GOP bills broadly seek to bar funding for gender-affirming care, Pride Flag displays and drag queen performances, issues Democrats have chalked up to bigotry and a major distraction.

Packing the bills with anti-LGBTQ policies could be out of step with public opinion, amid growing acceptance among Republicans for issues like same-sex marriage. Recent national polls have also found that a majority of Americans oppose criminalizing gender-transition care for minors, while supporting laws against discrimination and ensuring health insurance companies aren’t denying care based on sex or gender.

Rail

One week into Johnson’s speakership, House Republicans were forced to postpone their vote on the transportation funding bill after a mini revolt from GOP lawmakers in the Northeast Corridor over cuts to Amtrak. Those members said they aren’t comfortable with cutting more than $1 billion from the rail company, which receives annual subsidies from both states and the federal government and has a heavy concentration of stations in the region.

The Senate, meanwhile, just passed a bipartisan three-bill spending package that includes more than $1 billion for the Northeast Corridor and about $1.3 billion for the national network, funding similar to current levels.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), whose district is a straight shot to New York City by rail, said “without question” Democrats will feature the House GOP’s funding cuts in campaign ads next year.

“Because how do you deal with a 67 percent cut to Amtrak?” said DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. “Our votes are public, as they should be. And the public needs to know what harm these bills are doing to them."

On Monday, Biden took his own swipe at House Republicans over the rail funding proposal. “Our MAGA Republican friends in Congress are proposing to slash Amtrak's budget,” the president said at an Amtrak facility in Delaware. “We're trying to make train travel easier, faster, safer, more reliable. They're trying to make it slower, harder and less safe.”

Ally Mutnick, Zach Montellaro, Meredith Lee Hill, Alice Miranda Ollstein, Alex Daugherty, Tanya Snyder and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.