The House on Wednesday passed a short-term spending bill to avert a government shutdown ahead of the November election, postponing a fight over bigger funding until the end of the year.
House Speaker Mike Johnson again called on Democrats to provide a majority of the votes to keep federal funding flowing through December 20 after conservatives in his conference said they would not support the bill because it would not result in spending cuts and did not include a measure to impose new citizenship requirements for voter registration.
The vote was 341 to 82, with a majority of the Republican conference voting in favor of the bill, and Johnson used a special procedure that requires a two-thirds majority of voters to pass the bill, to get around attempts by hard-line Republicans to block it.
All Democrats present voted in favor of the bill.
“Governing by continuing resolution is not ideal,” said Rep. Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican and chairman of the Appropriations Committee. “Like most members of Congress, I would prefer to pass full-year individual appropriations bills as normal. We don’t have time. We cannot afford a government shutdown, which would be so devastating to our national security, critical government programs and the American people.”
The bill extends current funding levels through Dec. 20 and provides an additional $230 million for the Secret Service in the wake of the two assassination attempts on former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump.
Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, said Tuesday night that the Senate would consider and pass the bill just hours after it passed the House. To avoid a shutdown, lawmakers must get the bill to President Biden’s desk by midnight on Monday.
“CR gives Congress more time to work through the appropriations process to fund the government through the end of the year,” Schumer said. “As I’ve said all year, the only way we get things done is with bipartisan support.”
Even those who opposed the bill were eager to vote quickly and then leave Washington to return to campaigning. Neither house of Congress is expected to return to Capitol Hill after the November election.
But they effectively postponed a funding battle that is expected to intensify during the December holiday season.
The outcome of the election and which party controls the White House and Congress will also affect how the House and Senate approach spending issues after the election. Republicans in the Senate and some in the House have said they will seek to increase defense spending, while Democrats have vowed to fight for balance between domestic and defense spending.
This is the continuation of a long-running saga that has dogged Johnson.
Since taking control of the House nearly two years ago, he and his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, have often had to rely on Democrats for the majority of votes on legislation to avert a shutdown. Many conservative members of the House Republican Conference are fundamentally opposed to any bill that doesn’t mandate deep cuts to federal spending and routinely try to block such measures from even being considered.
Johnson on Tuesday called the bill, known as a continuing resolution, “a very limited, bare-bones continuing resolution that only does what is absolutely necessary.”
“Shutting down the government would be a political blunder,” he said. “I think everybody understands that, so we’re hoping this gets done quickly so that everybody can get back to their districts and get to work.”
Mr. Johnson had previously pushed for a long-term spending deal that included a bill to require registered voters to show proof of citizenship. Democrats rejected those demands, and conservative House members joined them in rejecting the speaker’s proposal last week.
Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a leading conservative voice, said he opposes the short-term funding bill because it does not include the citizenship verification measure Johnson championed. He predicted that congressional leaders will try to force lawmakers in December on a spending bill that would bundle all 12 spending measures together, known as an omnibus bill.
“We’re going to have to spend a lot of our time now fighting this huge omnibus bill that’s going to be imposed on us over Christmas, and I intend to do that,” Roy said, adding: “We shouldn’t be in this situation.”
