House Republicans privately express 'tremendous concerns' with Mike Johnson's play call on DHS
Source: MS NOW News
Mar. 27, 2026, 2:05 PM EDT
After a week of false starts toward ending the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., delivered the biggest setback yet on Friday, telling his conference that he wouldn’t bring the Senate deal, passed just hours earlier with unanimous support, to the House floor. Behind closed doors, many House Republicans are already questioning the speaker’s decision. On a GOP members-only conference call on Friday, Johnson came out in opposition to the Senate bill. “We are not gonna eat the crap sandwich the Senate sent us,” Johnson told House Republicans, according to a source on the line.
The Senate deal would fund most of DHS through the end of the fiscal year, with the notable exception of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and some operations at Customs and Border Protection. But Johnson wants all of DHS funded, vowing to put forward an eight-week continuing resolution that would cover the entire department. Democrats, however, have repeatedly rejected that approach, and there’s no reason to believe they’d go along with Johnson’s proposal now.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., made it clear Friday that Johnson’s proposal would be “dead on arrival” in his chamber. And a senior GOP Senate aide, granted anonymity to discuss the fluid situation, said there is a “zero percent chance” Johnson’s plan passes the Senate.“Clearest way to ending the shutdown,” this Senate GOP source said, is for the “House to approve what we sent.” But it’s not just Democrats and Senate Republicans who are questioning Johnson’s decision.
During the private conference call with House Republicans, Johnson’s own members criticized the speaker’s plan, according to the source on the line who was granted anonymity to share the private discussions. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, who is facing what could be a difficult re-election bid this fall, said she has “tremendous concerns” with Johnson’s proposal. “Who thinks the Senate is going to pass this?” Miller-Meeks asked, according to the source on the call.
Read more: https://www.ms.now/news/house-republicans-privately-tremendous-concerns-mike-johnsons-dhs
= new reply since forum marked as read
You're like a library that nobody has to sort through to find the good nuggets!
Thanks for the reply. I hope that, if nothing else works, the House is able to do that so that SOMEDAY we can end this nonsense.
AND was a CSPAN junkie. Had to watch those hearings dealing with my agency to know what my future work assignment would be because the field employees were always the last ones to know. That way when a supervisor suddenly demanded that we stop what we were doing to work on something that members on some Congressional Committee told us we needed to do right away, we weren't shocked. Sometimes we even started ordering extra stuff in the lab to get ready. 
I've thought so much about people who were in your position for their whole professional lives that elon musk or pete hogsbreath have just sent packing.
The shock of it all has torn my circle of friends up out of compassion for the life-long professionals, like you.
Thanks for your service to our country, my friend. 
What makes me madder is how IGNORANT the media is about how the government functions, including how a bill becomes a law.
I hate to say it but that School House Rock's "I'm Just a bill" should be required viewing for any and every political reporter -
I was yelling at the radio at 4 am ET this morning listening to a national reporter fumbling over what has transpired the past couple days, and the whole concept of 3 branches that are SUPPOSED TO HAVE "checks and balances".
Every major news outlet NEEDS to have some kind of expert in government affairs who is aware of this and can act as a resource for the rest of the reporters.
So for example, before the end of January 2026, there was a "Minibus" of bundled appropriations bills that covered groups/Departments, that consisted of -
H.R.7148 - Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026
)
DIVISION B--DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2026
DIVISION D--TRANSPORTATION, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2026
DIVISION E--FINANCIAL SERVICES AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2026* (*this includes the DEPARTMENT OF TREAASURY)
DIVISION F--NATIONAL SECURITY, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2026
And if you dive into that, under the appropriations titled - DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2026 (which is HHS, DOL, Dept of Education, and related), under DOL for the Bureau of Labor Statistics (the group that reports the Unemployment Rate and a niumber of other statistics) there is a section DESIGNATED for SALARIES AND EXPENSES -
salaries and expenses
For necessary expenses for the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
including advances or reimbursements to State, Federal, and local
agencies and their employees for services rendered, $640,500,000,
together with not to exceed $68,000,000 which may be expended from the
Employment Security Administration account in the Unemployment Trust
Fund.
with a designated amount of money and in this case, also referencing funding towards salaries also coming from an "Unemployment Trust Fund".
EVERY ONE of these has sections FOR SALARIES AND EXPENSES.
Trying to unilaterally "reprogram money" that 45 keeps doing, outside of what leeway was designated by Congress in appropriations (and note that the Barbarbic Butcher Bill INCLUDES multi-year appropriations being that it was done by "reconciliation", which is a budget function that can designate certain appropriations for certain things), gets into financially dicey and even illegal territory.
COWARDS 
