Only one House Democrat voted in the US House of Representatives for a spending bill that Republicans passed to keep the US government open.
The House passed a stopgap spending bill, known as a continuing resolution or “CR,” to keep the government open until September on Tuesday. Only one Republican, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, voted against the legislation.
Rep. Jared Golden of Maine was the only Democrat to join Republicans.
President Donald Trump had urged Republicans to support the resolution and called for a primary challenge to Massie for his opposition to the legislation.
But House Democrats opposed the legislation because of the fact the bill includes major cuts to programs from everything from education, health care and energy.
“This is a deeply partisan spending bill that not only contains completely unnegotiated and unexamined cuts – beyond that, it actually takes away all accountability from the president and strips Congress of their ability to actually review the tariffs that are being put forth by the executive,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York told The Indpendent before the vote.
In the rule Republicans passed to tee up a vote for the spending bill, they included a provision to prevent a vote to terminate the national emergency that Trump invoked to put in place his tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
Republican members of the House of Representatives typically oppose continuing resolutions on the grounds that they often continue spending levels at previous rates without any significant spending cuts. But many of them said that Trump’s presidency reassured them.
“You got people in place that are going to watch our money,” Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina said, citing Trump’s border czar Tom Homan and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who came to the Hill to speak to the Senate Republican conference.
“This is Trump’s CR,” Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina told The Independent.
Rep. Andy Harris, the chairman of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, typically voted against continuing resolutions but said he would support this one.
“This is not a typical CR, it’s not a stepping stone to an omnibus,” the Maryland Republican told The Independent, in reference to the legislation that typically combines all 12 spending bills needed to fund the government.
Speaker Mike Johnson hit out at the Democrats for opposing the bill, tweeting: “Today, House Republicans stood for the American people and voted to maintain funding the paychecks for our troops, the agents who secure our borders, the TSA workers responsible for safe air travel, as well as the healthcare and benefits for veterans, and essential services and programs that keep the government operational.
“But House Democrats decided to double down on partisan politics. For years, House Democrats have railed against government shutdowns, but they suddenly changed their tune when President Trump returned to office. Their falsehoods and misinformation campaigns are a desperate attempt to distract from their own failures. Despite these tactics, President Trump and Congressional Republicans will stop at nothing to deliver on the mandate given by the American people.”
The move served as the first major test for Democrats about whether they would work with Republicans to keep the government open, as they have in the past, versus actively opposing Republicans’ policies.
The vote kicks the resolution to the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to pass. But many Senate Democrats objected to the legislation on the grounds that Republicans crafted a bill without Democratic input.
“It doesn't feel like Republicans have actually undertaken their responsibility, which is to reach out and work with Democrats to try to find a path forward,” Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut told The Independent. “They knew that they were going to have to work with Democrats on budgetary issues, and they haven't, which is real failure of leadership on their, their part.”
But almost all Democratic Senators said they would wait to see whether the legislation would pass before making a definitive choice.
“It’s a pretty bad bill, gonna create a lot of pain for my constituents in Georgia,” Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia told The Independent. “We have progress that we've made on these 12 bipartisan appropriations bills. I think we ought ourselves time to finish it.”
Republicans in the House and the Senate are seeking to begin the process to pass Trump’s domestic policy agenda through a process called budget reconciliation, which would allow for them to sidestep a filibuster as long as legislation remains germane to the budget.
Last month, the House passed the budget resolution to begin the process of crafting the legislation, which they hope to use to beef up spending on the US-Mexico border, the Pentagon and energy exploration. They also hope to extend the tax cuts that Trump signed during his first tenure in the White House.
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