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Speaker Mike Johnson has said he would hold a vote “quickly” to restore more than $1 billion in funding, but ultraconservatives are insisting on attaching limits on abortion and voting rights.
May 7, 2025, 9:42 a.m. ET
A bill to restore more than $1 billion in funding for Washington, D.C., that Congress blocked earlier this year has stalled in the House, where Republican resistance to the measure has left its fate in doubt.
G.O.P. leaders say they still intend to bring up the bill, blaming the delay on the competing priorities of passing President Trump’s agenda. But some ultraconservative Republicans are opposing it outright, arguing that Washington — a Democratically run city that is home to a significant number of federal workers and Black residents — should not get to spend its own money unless it abides by Republicans’ wishes on voting, abortion and other issues.
The lack of action leaves D.C. in limbo, facing a cut of hundreds of millions of dollars from this year’s budget that could lead to steep reductions in city services. That is because the Republican-led Congress, when it passed a stopgap funding bill in March, omitted standard language routinely included in appropriations bills to approve the city’s budget. Without the approval, Washington was forced to revert to last year’s funding levels, amounting to a roughly $1.1 billion cut halfway through the fiscal year.
Republicans and Democrats quickly moved to rectify the issue. Immediately after passing the federal spending measure, the Senate overwhelmingly approved a separate bill that would allow D.C. to continue operating under its current budget without interruption. President Trump urged the House at the time to “immediately” pass the fix, which top Republicans signaled they would.
But nearly two months later, that legislation has yet to come up in the House.
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“Nobody’s talking about it,” said Representative Andy Harris, Republican of Maryland and the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus. “We just don’t see the urgency.”
