House Republicans’ plan to avert a partial government shutdown and crack down on election security surpassed a key hurdle Monday evening, though it’s headed for an uncertain fate in a chamber-wide vote this week.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is aiming to pass legislation combining a six-month extension of fiscal year 2024’s federal funding levels, called a continuing resolution (CR), and a House GOP bill to mandate proof of citizenship in the voter registration process.

The plan passed the House Rules Committee, 9-4, late Monday, bundled with unrelated bills – the final step for legislation before a House floor vote. 

House lawmakers are expected to hold a procedural vote allowing for debate on the bill Tuesday, with final passage teed up for Wednesday.

But it’s not clear yet whether the bill will survive a chamber-wide vote, with at least five House Republicans publicly opposing it as of Monday evening.

Johnson only holds a majority of four votes, meaning he will likely need Democratic support for it to pass.

Both Republicans and Democrats agree a CR is needed to give congressional appropriators more time to negotiate fiscal year 2025 federal spending and to avoid a partial government shutdown weeks before Election Day. The House has passed four of 12 GOP-led appropriations bills so far, while the Democrat-led Senate has not passed any. 

House GOP leaders are hoping to use the fiscal pressure to force Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., into holding a vote on the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, a bill authored by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and backed by former President Trump. 

But Democratic leaders generally see the SAVE Act as a nonstarter. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., called it ‘partisan and extreme’ in a letter to House Democrats on Monday, and the White House issued a veto threat.

Schumer wrote to colleagues on Sunday, ‘As I have said before, the only way to get things done is in a bipartisan way. Despite Republican bluster, that is how we’ve handled every funding bill in the past, and this time should be no exception. We will not let poison pills or Republican extremism put funding for critical programs at risk.’

Congressional leaders have until Sept. 30 to find a path forward or risk nonessential government programs being paused and potentially thousands of federal employees furloughed.

Meanwhile, Johnson has little room for error in his own conference.

The speaker could get some help from Democratic defectors, however. Five House Democrats broke from their party to vote for the SAVE Act earlier this year.

A CR through March would mean the government funding debate will be taken up by a new White House – run by either Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris – and a new Congress.

Foreign Affairs Chairman Rep. Mike McCaul said he still intends to haul in Antony Blinken on the Afghanistan withdrawal even after his sprawling report was completed, and will hold him in contempt of Congress if he does not comply. 

‘This was a catastrophic failure of epic proportions,’ the Texas Republican told reporters on Monday. ‘This is a disgrace. I will hold him in contempt if that’s what it takes to bring him before the American people.’

‘Secretary Blinken refuses to take one day out of this month to come before the [Gold Star] families.’ 

McCaul’s comments came on the heels of a 350-page report he released Monday on the withdrawal that the committee worked on for much of the past nearly two years of the Republican majority. 

It laid much blame on the State Department and detailed how State officials had no plan for getting Americans and allies out while there were still troops there to protect them.  

McCaul subpoenaed Blinken last week, saying he must appear before the committee by Sept. 19. 

State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel shrugged off the committee’s threats. 

‘The majority isn’t truly interested in legislating on Afghanistan policy. If they were, they would have sought to speak to the secretary long ago,’ he told reporters Monday. 

‘They would have sought to speak to him to get his input as they make this report,’ he said. ‘Instead they waited until the report was completely finished to come back to us.’ 

In May, McCaul asked Blinken to appear at a hearing in September on the committee’s report on its investigation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The State Department failed on several occasions to provide a date for Blinken to appear before lawmakers, McCaul said.

But the State Department said Monday Blinken had testified before House and Senate committees 14 times on the withdrawal, including four times before the Foreign Affairs Committee. 

McCaul also hinted that he believes there should still be a small contingency of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

‘We cannot see now into Afghanistan except through over the horizon, which doesn’t work. We can’t see Russia, China and Iran, either, because of this tragic failure of foreign policy,’ he told reporters.

‘We can’t see all of ISIS gathering in the Korazhan region of Tajikistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, making their way to the United States of America. That is what they did to us,’ the chairman went on. 

‘They embolden the unholy alliance of Putin, Xi, the Ayatollah and Kim Jong Un,’ he said, referring to the leaders of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. 

The Biden administration has long claimed the president’s hands were tied by the Doha agreement negotiated under President Trump that laid out a deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from Afghanistan. But the new report detailed how the Taliban had failed to hold up their end of the deal, absolving the U.S. of any obligation to adhere to it. 

‘​Biden, for his part, faced a stark choice when he came to office, abide by the flawed agreement and end America’s longest war, or blow up the deal, extend the war, and see a much smaller contingent of American troops back in combat with the Taliban,’ White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday. 

‘He chose the former and was able to buy additional time to prepare for that withdrawal all the way into the summer. And we, as a nation are safer for it. Any and every discussion about what happened in Afghanistan has to start right there. Sadly, the report does not dwell on it.’

The damning report claims that while US military personnel were drawing down their footprint in the nation, the State Department was growing theirs. 

And according to the report, U.S. Ambassador Ross Wilson was on vacation the last week of July and the first week of August 2021. He promptly hightailed it out of the country on a flight ahead of his staff in mid-August. He allegedly had COVID-19 at the time and forced a foreign service officer to take his COVID test so he could get on the plane.

Patel defended Wilson, but did not deny the allegations. 

‘I’m just not going to get into a tit-for-tat with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, but what I can say is that it is not my understanding that he was on vacation at the beginning of August. Beyond that, I will just echo what I said previously about Ambassador Wilson, that this is an esteemed individual, a decorated Foreign Service officer.’ 

He claimed the GOP-led report chose ‘scandal over substance’ and called it a ‘collection of cherry-picked comments… designed to paint an inaccurate picture of this administration’s efforts. 

He claimed the withdrawal was carried out in a way that was consistent with department policy. ‘The drawdown in Kabul was conducted in a manner which is consistent with our departments and our country’s standards and protocols when faced in those circumstances.’ 

He said he did not have a headcount on how many Americans are still in Afghanistan, but touted the more than 18,000 Afghan special immigrant visas (SIVs) for the U.S.’s Afghan allies, such as interpreters, that were processed in 2023.

House GOP leaders’ plan to avert a partial government shutdown at the end of this month could be derailed by mounting opposition from fiscal hawks within their own party.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., rolled out legislation late last week to extend the current year’s government funding levels through March via a continuing resolution (CR) to give congressional negotiators more time to work out the next fiscal year’s spending priorities.

It’s attached to a Republican-led bill for a proof of citizenship requirement in the voter registration process.

At least five House Republicans have come out against the plan as of Monday evening, meaning Johnson almost certainly needs Democratic votes to get it passed.

Despite former President Donald Trump blessing the plan, Johnson can afford little room for error with a razor-thin House majority of just four votes.

Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., told reporters on Monday that he and Reps. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., are all opposed.

‘I’ve made it clear…that I’ll be a no on the CR,’ Mills said. ‘As far as I’m concerned, this is nothing more than messaging.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Burchett to confirm his stance.

Massie told Fox News Digital last week that he believed it was a mistake for Johnson not to push for a longer CR. Under a bipartisan deal passed last year, a CR extending past April 30 would automatically trigger a 1% government funding cut.

‘Speaker Johnson has this teed up in front of him. The 1% cut is in law. All we need is a one-year CR to queue it up. When the April 30 deadline arrives, he could even trade the cut for something. But he’s afraid to even create a spending cut deadline,’ Massie said.

Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., who is retiring at the end of this year, also told Fox News Digital last week that he is against the bill.

Meanwhile, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., told Punchbowl News he was against the CR over concerns within the defense community about the impact of an extension into the new year. 

It has spurred concern and confusion among House Republicans just hours after they returned from a six-week recess.

‘I think we ought to have some conversation with those five,’ Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., a conservative Republican, told Fox News Digital of the plan’s opponents. ‘And I think those five ought to bear responsibility for blowing some opportunities that are right at hand.’

Meanwhile, Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., a national security hawk in a swing district, said he wanted to hear whether Johnson had a backup plan.

‘I think it’s a good first position. I think, you know, the question is, [what is] position two? Position three look like?’ Garcia told reporters. ‘We don’t need to share that with you guys in the media right now. But we should internally [have an] understanding of the strategy. And I think… hopefully we get more clarity on that.’

Lawmakers anticipate a Wednesday vote on the plan, but enough opposition could force House GOP leaders to scuttle the vote.

It’s possible that some Democrats will vote for the bill. Five House Democrats voted with Republicans to pass the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act earlier this year.

But Democratic leaders in the House and Senate have both come out in opposition to the plan. The White House also announced Monday that President Biden would veto the bill if it got to his desk.

Johnson told reporters earlier in the day that he did not have a fallback plan in case of failure.

‘There is no fallback position. This is a righteous fight. This is what the American people demand and deserve,’ Johnson said.

It’s a position that is likely to worry moderates who worry the political fallout from a government shutdown weeks before Election Day could cost them their seats.

‘If we shut down, we lose,’ one Republican told Fox News Digital last week.

Fox News Digital reached out to Johnson for comment on the ‘no’ votes.

Fox News’ Tyler Olson contributed to this report.