The Senate cleared a stopgap funding extension early Saturday shortly after a midnight deadline, staving off a partial government shutdown and ending days of gridlock over a package whose contents seemed to change by the hour.
Eager to head out of town for the Christmas recess, the Senate won unanimous consent to speed up the legislative clock and clear the measure needed by Friday night, when current funding was set to expire. While final passage technically exceeded the deadline, no shutdown is ordered if a bill is on its way to completion.
The measure, which President Joe Biden plans to sign, would extend current funding through March 14 and provide about $110 billion in disaster and farm aid.
The 85-11 Senate vote came hours after the House passed the measure on a 366-34 vote, well above the two-thirds majority threshold required under that chamber’s suspension of the rules procedure. GOP leaders’ decision to drop a two-year suspension of the statutory debt ceiling that was in a version rejected Thursday night was the catalyst for Friday’s dramatic turn of events.
“Though this bill does not include everything Democrats fought for, there are major victories in this bill for American families — provide emergency aid for communities battered by natural disasters, no debt ceiling, and it will keep the government open with no draconian cuts,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer said in a statement before the final vote.
In the House, almost all Democrats voted “no” Thursday along with 38 Republicans. On the do-over Friday night sans debt limit, all Democrats except for one — Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who voted “present” — backed the bill while 34 Republicans voted against it.
Before the vote, House Democrats called a caucus meeting to discuss the new version of the bill, which was posted with minor changes from Thursday night’s bill as well as the big, substantive change that cut the debt limit provision Trump wanted. After the meeting, Democrats said they’d come around and were likely to support the measure in enough numbers to pass via suspension of the rules.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries endorsed the measure after the party caucus meeting, saying that “it’s a win for the American people” because it would provide needed aid without touching the debt limit. “Everything else [in the bill] is a win for the American people, and the debt limit is out,” he said.
Democrats opposed inclusion of the debt limit provision, arguing it would make it easier on Republicans next year to cut taxes and ram through other partisan priorities. Cutting the debt limit language was enough to convince Democrats to go along with the stripped-down bill, even though it excluded a host of their priorities contained in an initial 1,547-page bipartisan measure.
The decision to scrap that initial version came at the behest of Tesla Inc. founder and Trump confidante Elon Musk, Democrats charged, arguing he did it in part to protect his company’s Chinese investments from restrictions in the broader bill.
“The world’s richest man … is calling the shots in the Republican Party,” House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said during debate. “Who is in charge?”
But in the end, opposition to the stripped-down bill was too difficult for many Democrats. It’s a relatively “clean” bill that would extend current federal spending levels through March 14 with certain targeted increases, including for Trump’s inaugural festivities and submarines the Navy wants to buy.
It contains a $100 billion aid package for victims of natural disasters; $10 billion in financial assistance to farmers suffering from low commodity prices and high costs, plus a one-year extension of expiring farm bill programs; and a bipartisan package of health care provisions that would renew Medicare payment policies, block Medicaid cuts to certain hospitals and extend funding for community health centers, among others.
The 118-page bill is vastly reduced from the initial package that Speaker Mike Johnson negotiated with Jeffries and Schumer.
Gone are hundreds of pages of additional health care policies, including provisions to clamp down on pharmacy-benefit manager practices; the China outbound investment section; language allowing the first annual member pay raise since 2009, and much, much more.
All of that will have to wait for next year, when even Trump has allowed he might sign off on members’ pay boost — as long as it’s on his watch.
Informal debt limit pact
The plan House Republican leaders rolled out Friday included a sidecar arrangement for Trump and other Republicans concerned about the debt limit situation.
House GOP leaders agreed to take up a budget reconciliation bill early next year that would combine a $1.5 trillion debt limit increase with a border security package, which Trump wants on his desk before he’s sworn in Jan. 20.
But to win over the party’s right flank, House Republicans also made an informal agreement to seek $2.5 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years through one or more reconciliation bills. While those bills would avoid the risk of a Democratic filibuster, passing cuts of that magnitude would be no easy task as Republicans struggle to govern next year with razor-thin majorities in both chambers.
Paul M. Krawzak contributed to this report.
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