Johnson faces political gauntlet as legislative fights collide

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is barreling toward a brutal end-of-the-month crunch, juggling a slate of high-stakes legislative fights with intensifying calls for one of his members to step down and growing unease within the GOP as the Iran conflict nears the 60-day mark.

The Speaker and his leadership team are scrambling in search of deals to reauthorize the government’s spy powers and reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), while staring down a looming deadline on President Trump’s war powers in Iran. They’re also facing increasing pressure from within their own ranks to expel Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), who’s facing a series of allegations related to campaign finance and sexual misconduct. 

Each of those issues has divided the GOP and left Johnson struggling to thread a political needle for the sake of advancing the party’s agenda heading into November’s elections. And they’re all coming to a head before May 1.

Most pressing on Johnson’s agenda is securing buy-in from hard-line conservatives on the renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows the government to spy on foreigners abroad without a warrant. The House passed a short-term extension of the section last week, pushing the expiration from April 20 to April 30, after a deal between GOP leadership and members of the House Freedom Caucus crumbled in the middle of the night. But the two sides don’t appear any closer to a deal as the new deadline quickly approaches. 

“FISA stands for FOREIGN Intelligence Surveillance Act for a reason – it is NOT supposed to be used DOMESTICALLY to spy on our own citizens. FIX FISA,” Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, wrote on the social platform X on Monday.

Johnson has downplayed the clash, saying the pushback revolves merely around “nuances with the language” while vowing to iron out those differences before the 30th.

“We’ll get it done,” he said last week. “The extension allows us the time to do that.” 

Yet the GOP critics are showing no signs of backing down. While President Trump has been pushing for a clean, 18-month extension of Section 702, privacy-minded conservatives have been pushing for a warrant requirement and other reforms before any information collected from Americans’ communications with foreign targets can be accessed.

“FISA was never intended to be used against American citizens; it poses a serious threat to constitutional privacy rights. A warrant requirement should be the bare minimum,” Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, wrote Saturday on X.

Johnson would need near-unanimous support from his conference on a procedural rule to bring any extension of Section 702 to the floor for debate and a final vote. Rule votes are typically seen as a test of party loyalty. While a handful of Democrats crossed the aisle on two procedural FISA votes early Friday morning, that support was offset by at least a dozen GOP defections, and Democratic leaders have warned not to count on their support to pass a rule.

FISA will likely dominate the conversation this week, though a push to remove Mills is also set to take center stage. A number of Republicans are looking to oust him, along with Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.), who is under federal indictment over allegations that she stole $5 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster funds for personal use. 

Johnson threw his support behind expelling Cherfilus-McCormick after the House Ethics Committee found she committed 25 of 27 ethics violations. Mills, however, is still under investigation by the committee, and Johnson has long maintained that the panel should complete its probe before the chamber takes action to punish its members. 

But some members, including Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), are pressing for immediate action. An expulsion resolution would need two-thirds support from the House, and a successful effort would only narrow Johnson’s razor-thin majority. Mills is also weighing an expulsion effort against Mace, according to a NOTUS report, sparking a potential tit for tat that could further strain Johnson’s efforts to keep his caucus unified. 

“Sexual predator Cory Mills going after the one woman who exposed him. Imagine my surprise,” Mace, who is under investigation by the Ethics panel over allegations of improper reimbursement practices, wrote Monday on X. “Mr. Speaker, @SpeakerJohnson, why are we continuing to protect this monster?”

Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) said on X in response to an article about House Republicans protecting Mills: “Not this Republican. I don’t care if you are Republican or Democrat. No one is above the law.”

GOP leaders will also be forced to soon confront questions surrounding Trump’s authority to wage war with Iran. So far, the president’s Republican allies in both chambers have rallied to block the Democrats’ efforts to end the conflict until Trump can secure Congress’s explicit approval. Those Republicans say Trump is well within his authority to conduct military operations unilaterally under the War Powers Act, which allows presidents to launch emergency strikes in the name of national security for 60 days without Congress’s OK. 

But that 60-day window is set to close on April 29, and some of the same Republicans who opposed the earlier war powers resolutions are vowing to support the idea just as soon as the deadline arrives. 

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) is one of them. Last week, he introduced a resolution forcing Trump to end the military operations immediately at the 60-day mark and withdraw all U.S. forces from the conflict within 30 days afterward. 

“This is the law that has applied to past administrations,” Fitzpatrick said, “and it is the law that will apply to current and future administrations.”

Support from just a small number of Republicans like Fitzpatrick all but ensures that the next war powers resolution to hit the floor will pass, creating new problems for Johnson and GOP leaders who have both defended Trump’s unilateral actions and downplayed the internal divisions on the issue. 

Another headache for Johnson will be rallying Republicans around a Senate-driven and Trump-backed plan to end the DHS shutdown by pushing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol funding through the budget reconciliation process. 

The Senate is aiming to vote on a budget blueprint for the reconciliation bill this week, which Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has said he wants to keep “skinny” to expedite its passage through both chambers as the record-breaking shutdown has already stretched for more than two months. 

Trump alleviated some of the pressure on Congress to act by shifting funds around to pay DHS employees. But some of those workers have already been warned that the money will dry up in early May.

Johnson also said last week Republicans will have to do a “skinny reconciliation package” and added, “We’re going to move it as expeditiously as possible.” But several conservatives have been clamoring for DHS to be fully funded through reconciliation, and for other priorities to be added to the bill.

The discontent boiling among some Republicans will likely force Johnson to tamp down on internal tensions in the days ahead, as he can only afford to lose one GOP vote on any party-line bill. 

“The Senate doesn’t get — they’re not the only say in this,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), policy chair of the House Freedom Caucus, told reporters last week. “I would strongly recommend that they talk to all of us who have a vote — unless they want to go try to patch together votes with Democrats.”

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