Washington CNN —
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday unveiled a spending bill that could avert a government shutdown if passed by both the House and Senate before the Sept. 30 budget deadline.
In a letter to lawmakers, Johnson said he did not want to shut down the government just weeks before the election, but he also stressed that the bill “will be a very limited, bare-bones continuing resolution, including only those extensions that are absolutely necessary.”
The spending plan, known as a qualified continuing resolution, has bipartisan support.
Top Democrats, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, praised bipartisan negotiations for delivering a funding deal “without cuts or poison pills” and signaled that a stopgap bill would be passed quickly ahead of the deadline.
Still, even if a deal is reached, the federal government is set to begin preparing this week for possible shutdowns of non-essential operations that could affect millions of federal employees and military members, as well as critical functions like Head Start, border security and loan programs.
Congress rarely passes budget bills on time, but U.S. lawmakers had to pass a series of continuing resolutions, each time raising fears of a government shutdown, before finally approving a measure in March to fully fund the government for the current fiscal year.
Government funding to be maintained until December 20th
The bill will allow the government to continue operating for roughly three more months, until December 20th.
The extension averts a possible government shutdown before the November election but sets up a showdown over a full spending package just before the Christmas holiday.
The bill includes an additional $231 million for the U.S. Secret Service to help protect 2024 presidential candidates.
The increased funding comes after a second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a Florida golf club on September 15. The previous assassination attempt on Trump occurred in July during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The incidents have drawn intense scrutiny of the Secret Service, with Kimberly Cheatle resigning as director of the agency the day after testifying before lawmakers about the July assassination attempt.
New funding for the Secret Service won’t be available until the secretary of Homeland Security, who oversees the agency, submits a report requested by the House committee charged with investigating the first assassination attempt.
The additional funds will be available through September 30, 2025.
Remove foreign voting measures and disaster funds
Johnson previously unveiled the Republican Party’s six-month government funding plan, which includes controversial measures targeting foreign nationals voting, an effort pushed by Trump despite the fact that it is already illegal for foreign nationals to vote in federal elections.
The former president had called for a government shutdown if lawmakers fail to pass the voting measure known as the SAVE Act into law.
The House failed to pass the spending bill on Wednesday, and the version released Sunday did not include any voting measures.
Sunday’s stopgap measure also does not include an additional $10 billion to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) disaster relief fund that Johnson included in his six-month bill. The agency has seen multiple disasters this year and is running low on funds. But the bill allows the agency to quickly use funds set aside in the continuing resolution for needed response and recovery efforts.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
CNN’s Lauren Fox and Haley Talbot contributed to this report.
