House Speaker Mike Johnson canceled a scheduled Wednesday vote on a temporary spending bill that would keep the government’s lights on for six more months once the new budget year begins on Oct. 1. 

The stopgap measure to provide federal funding until March 28 had divided the Republican conference as Johnson (R-La.) attached another bill to it that requires people to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

“No vote today, because we’re in the consensus-building business here in Congress,” the House speaker told reporters in the morning. “With small majorities, that’s what you do.”

“Right now, Congress has a lot of responsibilities but two primary obligations: Responsibly fund the government and make sure that our elections are free and fair and secure,” Johnson added.

Fiscal conservatives have taken particular issue with using a so-called “continuing resolution,” or CR, to fund the government at current levels and avert a shutdown after Sept. 30.

Jamming Senate Democrats with a bill that included the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act was also seen as a losing strategy by some Republicans — including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Axios reported.

Democrats had already come out in opposition to the funding package ahead of a scheduled Wednesday afternoon vote, though five House Democrats had voted in favor of the SAVE Act back in July.

“House Republicans released — without even consulting the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate or the President — a six-month CR that is transparently unserious and seemingly designed for scoring political points instead of avoiding a shutdown,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a Monday floor speech.

“In fact, it is so unserious that the White House has already issued a veto threat,” Schumer added. “Democrats will do everything we can to avoid a Republican-manufactured shutdown. We are ready to work on a bipartisan bill that will keep the government open. Any extraneous provisions that hinder that goal should be set aside.”

“There’s nothing on the table for us to negotiate,” Johnson fired back Wednesday on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria.” 

“We know for a fact noncitizens are registered to vote in many states around the country. We must solve this problem. The last train leaving the station is continuing-resolution government funding. Why? Because Chuck Schumer and the Senate have not passed a single appropriations bill. They have completely failed in their duty,” he said.

“This is a serious problem. We have races in Congress in the House that are decided by tiny margins. I have a colleague here [GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa] that won her first race in 2020 by six votes. We have colleagues, many, that have won their races by just a couple hundred votes. We have about 16 million illegals who have come across that border since Border Czar Harris opened it up with Joe Biden.”

On Tuesday, former President Donald Trump had urged Republicans to vote against the short-term spending package without receiving “absolute assurances” it would boost “election security,” dealing Johnson another blow.

“If Republicans in the House, and Senate, don’t get absolute assurances on Election Security, THEY SHOULD, IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, GO FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.  

“THE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO ‘STUFF’ VOTER REGISTRATIONS WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS,” the 78-year-old ex-president claimed. “DON’T LET IT HAPPEN – CLOSE IT DOWN!!”!

McConnell told reporters Tuesday that leaning into the shutdown threat was “a bad idea — at any time,” the Hill reported.

But at least six GOP lawmakers in the narrowly divided lower chamber this week have said publicly they would vote the CR down.

“I’m voting Hell No on the ‘Continuing Appropriations and Other Matter Act’ this week,” libertarian-leaning Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) wrote on X this week, pointing out that the proposal doesn’t trim spending enough.

Reps. Cory Mills (R-Fla.); Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.); Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), who chairs the House Armed Services Committee; Tim Burchett (R- Tenn.) and Jim Banks (R-Ind.) had joined Massie in opposing the bill.

A pre-election shutdown would also hamper various congressional investigations — including a select task force looking into the July 13 attempted assassination of Trump — and prompt a blame game between both parties over federal employees having to forgo paychecks.

Republicans hold a 220-211 majority in the lower chamber, a razor-thin margin that has allowed for hardline members to push for a change in leadership over government funding bills in the past.

Last year, a bipartisan vote on a continuing resolution to fund the government was the trigger for eight House Republicans, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), to oust then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-La.).

Three weeks later, Johnson was unanimously elected by the GOP conference, though he has since been threatened with another motion to vacate his speakership by far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).