New House speaker passes first test: Avoid shutdown

Newly elected U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson cleared his first major leadership test Tuesday by passing a short-term funding measure to avert a government shutdown.

Now comes the hard part.

Speaker Johnson and his fellow Republicans have vowed to go back to the old way of approving a budget – evaluating one section of the government at a time, allowing lawmakers to weigh in – rather than rolling it all into one “omnibus” bill that leaders negotiate behind closed doors. 

The Senate is expected to passthe stopgap funding measure – known as a continuing resolution, or CR – well before the for some parts of the government until Jan. 19, 2024, and the rest until Feb. 2. That buys Congress time to try to complete the budget process, which requires passing 12 separate appropriations bills. But Tuesday also underscored fault lines that could bedevil Mr. Johnson in the coming weeks.