House Speaker Johnson to craft temporary spending bill through Jan. 15, but storm clouds surface

House Speaker Mike Johnson plans to move forward with crafting a temporary spending bill through Jan.15, a tactic that landed his predecessor in hot water, Just the News has learned.

Johnson revealed his plan to the GOP conference on Wednesday. 

When running for speaker, Johnson had said he would pursue a Continuing Resolution (CR) that runs through January 15 or April 15 but noted he was open to whichever option the conference preferred.

Former House Speaker McCarthy put a 45-day CR on the House floor to avoid a shutdown on Sept. 30 and it passed with Republican and Democrat votes.

McCarthy's move angered far-right members of the House GOP conference who preferred passing separate single-subject appropriations bills for each cabinet agency. McCarthy was later ousted after 8 Republicans and all Democrats voted in favor of a motion to vacate the chair that was introduced by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.

Votes were frozen in the House for 3 weeks while the House GOP conference searched for a replacement speaker.

The CR that passed under McCarthy expires on Nov. 17. 

Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., one of those who helped oust McCarthy, signaled Wednesday he would not support a temporary spending measure.

”Some of us are called the hardliners up here. I think we're going to be giving the new speaker a little bit of grace,” Crane told the Just the News, No Noise television show Wednesday night. “Some people might have seen some of that, you know, last week when we voted for one of the appropriations bills that Speaker Johnson, you know, wasn't in leadership when it was put forward and put through committee and then put on the floor. We gave him a little grace on that one.

“But when it comes to a CR or a stopgap or whatever they want to call it this week up in Washington, it's basically just funding the government at Nancy Pelosi levels,” he said. “And that's something that I'm not prepared to do.”