MTG warns Speaker Johnson’s ‘grace period is over’ as he returns to appropriations mess

The House is set to return to Washington early next month with a lengthy to-do list of must-pass spending bills and a short time frame in which to complete it. The hastened timeline marks the latest leadership test for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) as he seeks to come to an agreement with Senate Democrats while also appeasing those on the far right of his own party.

The House adjourned for its holiday recess on Dec. 14 without making progress on the lingering appropriations bills it must pass before they expire early next year, instead punting the spending legislation until they return in January 2024. Johnson’s decision to adjourn left several conservatives upset with the lack of action on appropriations bills, according to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who said the newly elected speaker has reached the end of his “honeymoon phase.”

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“So far [the appropriations process] hasn’t moved forward, and that’s what we’re all very angry about,” Greene told the Washington Examiner. “Of course, we were all giving him a little bit of grace because he got thrown into the speaker seat at a hard time [and] was not ready at all. This was a job I don’t think he was prepared to do and it just happened over a three-week battle over who we were going to elect for speaker. However, it was the job he wanted, and so I think the grace period is over.”

Johnson initially proposed an expedited appropriations schedule in late October shortly after securing the speaker’s gavel. The original proposal sought to pass all of the House spending bills before the Nov. 17 government shutdown deadline in addition to a short-term continuing resolution that would buy lawmakers some time to negotiate a final budget with Senate Democrats.

However, Johnson was forced to pull five of the spending bills from consideration due to disagreement within the GOP conference that threatened the legislation’s passage. Instead, the House passed a temporary stopgap measure that extended the spending deadlines until next year.

The House has passed seven of the 12 appropriations bills so far, with five remaining to fund Agriculture; Financial Services; Commerce, Justice, and Science; Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education; and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development.

Still, the lower chamber is further along in progress than the Senate, which has passed only three.

However, Greene said many House GOP members were unhappy with the way Johnson delayed negotiations by splitting the appropriations bills into two deadlines in January and February 2024 without bringing any of the legislation to the floor for a vote in December.

“[The spending bills] should have been done well before now, and it was extremely disappointing that we didn’t even try to pass at least one of them in December,” Greene said.

The first batch of appropriations bills are set to expire on Jan. 19, 2024, meaning Congress must pass its Agriculture; Military Construction and Veterans Affairs; Transportation, Housing and Urban Development; and Energy and Water legislation to ensure continuing funding for a slew of government departments.

The second deadline falls on Feb. 2, 2024, for Congress to pass the remaining appropriations bills for Commerce, Justice, and Science; the Department of Defense; Financial Services and General Government; Homeland Security; Interior and Environment departments; Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education; the Legislative Branch; and State and Foreign Operations.

Greene also expressed disappointment in Johnson’s handling of the National Defense Authorization Act, which included a short-term extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act rather than voting on that piece of legislation separately. Greene, who is on the NDAA conference committee, said that decision was made through negotiations with the Senate and finalized without the committee’s approval.

“Those of us on the conference committee didn’t get to participate at all in the policies for the NDAA,” she said. “Not one single bit. And then we were notified with a 15-minute warning that said, ‘Come on down, the final version of the NDAA is ready for you to sign.’ And we had no idea that it was even ready. … We had no idea what was in it.”

Conservatives also expressed anger with Johnson after discovering the final version of the NDAA stripped several of their policies, including those to rein in Pentagon policies on abortion, diversity, and transgender service members. The final language also included additional military aid to Ukraine, which Greene had fought to be omitted from the original legislation.

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“That was a complete disaster and an extreme disappointment for myself and for many people,” Greene said. “It was shocking, really. And that was pretty much after the honeymoon period was over and we expected him to do a lot better.”

The Washington Examiner reached out to Johnson’s office for comment.