US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Republican from Louisiana, speaks as he leads a news conference with House Republican leadership at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on February 3, 2026.
Roberto Schmidt | Afp | Getty Images
House Speaker Mike Johnson narrowly cleared a key procedural hurdle toward ending the three-day partial shutdown of much of the U.S. government.
The vote was 217-215 and cleared the way for the House to vote on the package and send it to President Donald Trump’s desk to reopen the government, which has been shuttered since Saturday morning. That vote is now expected later Tuesday.
Johnson kept the House open much longer than expected to clear the procedural vote, where he could only afford to lose one Republican. More than a handful of Republicans held out their votes, and Rep. John Rose, R-Tenn., initially voted against moving ahead before changing his vote to support it. All Democrats voted no on the procedural vote. Many Republicans wanted to compel a Senate vote on a controversial voter-ID measure known as the SAVE Act.
That caused a mad scramble on the House floor from the Republican leadership team to get the holdouts to vote yes and to flip Rose. Rose eventually changed his vote, unlocking the House’s ability to move forward on the bill.
Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries had told Johnson that Democrats would not help Republicans advance the procedure under which the government funding vote will happen, requiring Johnson to work within his own razor-thin majority to fund the government. After a new Democratic lawmaker was sworn in Monday, Johnson can only afford to lose one Republican vote on any party-line measure.
“We’re going to pass the rule today, it was never in doubt to me,” Johnson said in a news conference Tuesday morning. “We’re governing responsibly and we’re getting the job done.”
Johnson spent most of Monday trying to work through rebellions in his party against ending the shutdown. Among them were conservative lawmakers demanding a vote on the SAVE Act.
The bill would fully fund the departments of Defense, Treasury, State, Health and Human Services, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, and Education through the remainder of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. Democrats in the Senate had the Department of Homeland Security funding stripped and replaced with a two-week stopgap after two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by federal immigration officers.
A negotiation is now underway on new guardrails for immigration enforcement in the bill to fund DHS.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.