US Congress brings election-year issues into government funding fight

By Bo Erickson and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress returns from the campaign trail on Monday to face a month-end government funding deadline, but election-year politics will still be at the forefront as Republicans seek to use the process to advance a voting bill backed by Donald Trump.

Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson has proposed a six-month stopgap funding bill that includes a measure requiring people to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.

It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote in U.S. federal elections and independent studies have shown that there is no evidence that large numbers of people cast votes illegally. But former President Trump has made it a focus of his presidential campaign against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise said the non-citizen voting measure was a key demand of members of his caucus.

"We've been talking to a lot of our members, and everybody has their own things they'd like to attach" to the funding bill, Scalise said in an interview. "This is the one that seems to be where most of our members have coalesced.”

The Democratic-majority Senate ignored a standalone bill on the issue passed by the Republican-controlled House earlier this year, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer signaled little interest in the new measure.

"As we have said each time we've had a CR, the only way to get things done is in a bipartisan way and that is what has happened every time," Schumer said in a statement to Reuters, using congressional shorthand for "continuing resolution" stopgap funding measures.

Some House Republicans have voiced skepticism at trying to include the non-citizen voting measure in a spending bill.

"We know it's not going to get passed. It's disingenuous and dishonest to attach it to that CR," said hardline Republican Representative Matt Rosendale in a video posted on social media, in which he advocated for Republicans to focus on funding bills with more conservative spending priorities.

The House Rules Committee on Monday is due to take up the bill, which would fund the government through March 28, setting the stage for a possible vote by the full chamber later this week.

Top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries has said that he plans to push for a $1.68 trillion discretionary spending level, a number reached during last year's debt ceiling negotiations.

CRITICAL DEADLINE AHEAD

Almost three decades have passed since Congress in 1996 last successfully performed one of its core functions -- keeping the government funded -- by the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year. This year, it failed to pass a full-year funding bill until March.

Lawmakers face an even more critical self-imposed deadline on Jan. 1, before which they must act to raise or extend the nation's debt ceiling or risk defaulting on more than $35 trillion in federal government debt.

Lawmakers have shown little appetite for a partial government shutdown, of the kind last seen in 2018-2019 during Trump's presidency, this close to the Nov. 5 election. Trump has often argued in favor of government shutdowns, both in and out of office, and has suggested Republicans push for one if the non-citizen voting bill does not pass.

"A shutdown is good for nobody, in my view. It's a quick way to become a minority, being a part of a shutdown and advocating for it," centrist Republican Representative Don Bacon told Reuters.

Bacon said he would prefer a stopgap that extended only into December, saying that he believed more military spending was needed sooner.

House Democrats, meanwhile, accused Republicans of posturing.

"House Republicans are again playing politics with the country’s well being. The public is tired of their chaos," Representative Suzan DelBene, the head of the House Democrats re-election strategy, told Reuters.

(Reporting by Bo Erickson and David Morgan; Editing by Scott Malone)