Marjorie Taylor Greene’s tweet on government shutdown shows division in the Republican Party
With the budget freeze looming on October 1, Republicans in the House of Representatives are running out of time to pass a funding bill and avoid the first shutdown since 2018, which lasted more than a month.
There are disputes among Republicans in the House of Representatives as House Speaker Mike Johnson tries to push through a bill to prevent a government shutdown. In addition, Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has proven to be a staunch critic of Johnson’s plans.
Greene accused the speaker of using bait and switch tactics after Johnson released a statement On Tuesday, he urged his Republican colleagues to support his plans to include the SAVE Act in the administration’s budget proposal.
Under the SAVE Act, or Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, new voters would have to provide proof of their U.S. citizenship in the form of a passport or birth certificate to register to vote.
The law has been criticized as a means of disenfranchising voters, and both Senate Democrats and President Joe Biden have vowed to block the SAVE ACT.
Representative Greene calls Johnson’s fight a fake
Last week, six Republican lawmakers expressed opposition to the funding bill and Democrats vowed to oppose the SAVE Act. This week, Johnson stood firm on his plans and urged his party to pass the bill.
“I urge all of my colleagues to do what the overwhelming majority of the people of this country rightly demand and deserve – namely, to prevent non-Americans from participating in American elections,” Johnson said in a press release.
Several Republican members of the House of Representatives criticized Johnson’s plans, including Greene. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Greene called Johnson’s fight a sham.
“Johnson will NOT commit to standing up to Democrats in the shutdown fight and will allow the passage of a clean CR to fund the government because he believes a government shutdown will be blamed on Republicans and will hurt their electoral results,” Greene said. “Speaker Johnson needs to reach out to the Democrats he has been working with all along to get the votes he needs to do what he already plans to do.”
She continued to describe the Speaker of the House as someone who has no willingness to fight and acknowledged that it is too late for a shutdown to influence this year’s elections.
Representative Thomas Massie (RK.Y.) also criticized Johnson’s plan for not providing responsible funding to the government and called it an unprofessional solution.
The government is facing the first shutdown this decade
Congress has until October 1 to pass a funding bill to avoid a government shutdown. The last government shutdown lasted 35 days in late 2018 and early 2019 during the Trump administration.
Government shutdowns do not necessarily mean that the entire government stops working. Federal agencies that classify their employees as “essential” will continue to work but will not be paid immediately. On the other hand, “nonessential” employees will be furloughed and will not be able to work or be paid until the government reopens.
Some parts of the government are completely shut down, such as the National Park Service, which is closing all of its sites to the public and furloughing its rangers.
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected] and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.
