House Rules Committee member raises concerns that speaker will bypass committee to pass stopgap

Congressman Ralph Norman, R-S.C. predicted that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., would bypass the House Rules Committee to pass a stopgap spending bill.

"If I had to bet, I think that it would probably come under suspension which takes a three-fourths vote, rather than go through the [House] Rules Committee, which I'm on, that it should go through," Norman said on the Tuesday edition of the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. 

Congress has until Dec. 20 to pass a continuing resolution in order to avert a government shutdown. If the continuing resolution passes, the government will remain open until March 14.

"I think that the disappointment with a lot of us that we expressed to Mike Johnson, was there's no pay fors," Norman said. "The American people spoke on November 5 and it was to get this House in financial order, and it's just not happening."

Norman speculated that the Rules committee would offset some of the spending with amendments, if it passed through the committee. 

"If it [goes] through Rules, there's going to be some amendments, stand alone amendments that will vote to pay for some of this monstrosity of spending, which is $100 billion in disaster relief," he said.

Lawmakers have said that the stopgap bill will give $10 billion in economic aid to farmers and $100 billion in disaster aid, Reuters reported.