Mike Johnson's 'Happy Ending' May Be Short Lived

House Speaker Mike Johnson may have avoided a disaster in the chamber, but the celebrations may be short-lived.

The House voted to avert a government shutdown on Tuesday, passing Johnson's continuing resolution, or "CR." The vote was seen as a huge win for Johnson, who was able to get 209 House Democrats to cross party lines and support the bill, which would fund some government departments until mid-January and the rest through early February.

The bill was a major test for the new Speaker, who was elected less than a month ago and who continues to govern a starkly divided Republican conference. Ninety-three conservative hardliners threatened to derail his plans for a stopgap measure, voting against the CR because it lacked spending cuts or policy changes they wanted included in the legislation.

But even though the measure cleared what would likely be its biggest hurdle, Johnson still has a long road ahead of him as speaker.

"It will be a significant feather in his cap...for now," Republican strategist Matt Klink told Newsweek. "The joy of winning will be outweighed by the significant work that remains to be done on the current year's spending bills, meaning that he won't be able to sleep long on his accomplishments."

The bill will now head to the Senate, where leaders on both sides have signaled they're willing to push it through.

"I'm heartened that the bill Speaker Johnson is advancing omits the devastating cuts that are nonstarters for Democrats, "Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said of the CR on Monday. "The Speaker's proposal is far from perfect, but the most important thing is that it refrains from making steep cuts while avoiding a costly government shutdown."

A government shutdown, which was expected to come days before next week's Thanksgiving holiday, would have left hundreds of thousands of federal workers without pay.

"He earns a degree of respect from the Washington community, but he also gets demerits from the Freedom Caucus," political scientist John Pitney told Newsweek. "There are no completely happy endings in today's House."

Political consultant Jay Townsend called Tuesday's vote a "temporary victory" for Johnson. Townsend told Newsweek that while the Speaker wins praise for passing a bipartisan bill, he is still tasked with the difficult role of balancing the interests of the House GOP's different factions.

Either Johnson forces moderates to take politically risky votes or he stops short of giving conservatives what they want, Townsend said.

"He has an impossible job," he said.

Other Republicans have already failed at meeting the challenge.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was forced to make major concessions to get the far-right flank of his party to vote for his speakership, suffering 15 rounds of voting before he won the gavel and an ousting just 10 months later.

On the other hand, Representative Jim Jordan couldn't earn the support of moderate Republicans when he launched his speakership bid, forcing the founder of the Freedom Caucus to withdraw his bid for being too right-wing.

Even though Johnson was able to unite his party and win the speakership, the Republican conference remains divided, leaving their new Speaker in a spot just as complicated as his predecessor.

"It's deja vu all over again," Klink said. "New speaker Mike Johnson needs the support of the Freedom Caucus for his spending bill to pass. As we saw with Kevin McCarthy, because of the GOP's slim margin in the House, a handful of dissatisfied members can torpedo this legislation. Worse still for Speaker Johnson, if his spending plan does pass but needs Democrat votes to do so, it may cause dissatisfied House members to 'vacate the chair,' throwing the House into uncertainty once again."