Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, will resign from Congress on January 21.
The House of Representatives is once again on the verge of a government funding confrontation, as House Republican leaders prepare to lose their majority of two votes.
Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, confirmed to Fox News on Tuesday that he will resign from Congress effective Jan. 21 to become the next president of Youngstown State University.
That falls bang in the thick of two government budget deadlines set by Congress. The House and Senate must strike an agreement to finance certain agencies by Jan. 19 and others by Feb. 2 under a continuing resolution (CR) passed late last year.
The two-seat margin Johnson will leave behind, however, will not last long. Rep. Brian Higgins, D-NY, announced his retirement from Congress in November.
Fox News Digital contacted Higgins’ office many times to inquire about a specific resignation date.
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If he stays until the first two days of the month, House Republicans will have limited wriggle room in bipartisan talks to avoid a government shutdown if no plan is in place by Feb. 2.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s departure, effective Dec. 31, reduced the GOP’s control to three seats only days before Johnson’s announcement.
When questioned by Fox News Digital in late December, a few House Republicans dismissed it, including GOP Conference Vice Chair Blake Moore, R-Utah, who claimed that the situation they would find themselves in following the departures of Johnson and McCarthy would not be all that different from the four-seat majority that the party had held for the majority of 2023.
“It is difficult to function in a two-seat [majority] and a four-seat [majority]. We must use discernment in our work and produce something that unites us all,” Moore stated.
However, some of the people who discussed McCarthy’s exit with Fox News Digital were less optimistic. After McCarthy’s declaration last month, Rep. Mike Garcia, a Republican from California, stated, “Depending on what happens, we’re one day away from losing the majority between God, gravity, indictments, and retirements.”
Bipartisanship will be required for any federal financing agreement, as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., are now collaborating on a top-line figure.
But if Republicans can only lose two House Republican votes to pass measures, it will be more challenging for them to wrangle the kind of conservative ideas that they managed to cram into numerous spending bills that were passed last year.
In an interview with reporters on Wednesday, Schumer expressed optimism that a bipartisan agreement would be achieved in time to prevent a government shutdown.
“We’re getting pretty close,” declared the Democrat from New York. “Considering the progress we’ve made, I’m hopeful that we will prevent a shutdown and that we can get a budget agreement shortly. Though some have claimed it would be, that is most definitely not impossible.”
