House Republicans are turning their focus to a debate over whether to fund the government through December or into next year after their hopes of passing 12 full-year funding bills before the August recess collapsed.

With no one expecting the annual funding process to be complete by a Sept. 30 shutdown deadline, hard-line conservatives are advocating for a stopgap measure, also known as a continuing resolution (CR), that would run into March of next year in order to avoid being jammed with a massive spending package under a lame-duck president.

They want to avoid a December funding deadline that historically has teed up a massive omnibus spending bill negotiated by leaders in the House and Senate.

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), a spending cardinal and member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said he and other Republicans would prefer a CR “into next year,” calling the prospect of a trillion-dollar-plus omnibus a “danger.”

“If the Democrats want to negotiate in good faith in December, we could always negotiate something in good faith,” he added. “But I'd rather not see a December deadline.”

Conservatives confident of former President Trump’s chances of taking back the White House in November also hope that a stopgap bill into next year would allow Trump to have more influence over how the government will be funded through fall of 2025.

But other Republicans, including members of the House Appropriations Committee, have pushed back against the idea of a CR into next year, instead pressing for........

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