The Senate on Wednesday cleared a 12-week spending bill that would kick this year’s spending tussle until after the November elections.
The 78-18 vote means the bill is now on its way to President Joe Biden’s desk well ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline to prevent a partial government shutdown.
The rapid-fire votes in both chambers Wednesday — an unusual occurrence — allow lawmakers to head home to campaign. They’ll have roughly five weeks after the elections to secure a full-year fiscal 2025 spending deal before the new Dec. 20 deadline.
Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray, during a very brief floor debate, called the bill a “straight-forward, bipartisan compromise” to temporarily fund the government. She said lawmakers should start negotiating final spending bills.
“It’s time for Democrats and Republicans to negotiate those bills together, instead of House Republicans just following the loudest voices on the far right,” Murray, D-Wash., said.
During the brief debate, Senate Appropriations ranking member Susan Collins said a shutdown would be disastrous for the Pentagon and other federal programs.“Government shutdowns are inherently a failure to govern effectively,” she said, urging her colleagues on both sides to support it.
The House earlier on Wednesday had voted 341-82 to pass the measure under suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority of those present and voting. There were zero defections on the Democratic side, while Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., comfortably secured the support of a majority of his conference.
With lawmakers eager to get back home and Hurricane Helene set to make landfall in Florida, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate GOP leaders on Tuesday night locked in a time agreement to vote on the bill Wednesday after no more than two hours of debate, with no amendments.
“Americans can breathe easy that because both sides have chosen bipartisanship. Congress is getting the job done,” Schumer said earlier Wednesday. “We will keep the government open. We will prevent vital government services from needlessly coming to a halt.”
The bill is mostly just a clean extension of current spending levels to Dec. 20, though many GOP conservatives believe those existing spending levels are already too high.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, an influential House Freedom Caucus member, pointed out lawmakers’ consistent inability to pass individual spending bills to fund the government on time, while continually adding more debt to the national credit card.
“What are we doing?” Roy said during House debate. “It’s absurd. And the American people look at us and say, what on earth is wrong in Washington?”
Conservatives also wanted tough voter ID measures attached to the bill, but last week enough Republicans refused to vote for a six-month stopgap bill that included the proof-of-citizenship legislation that it was defeated on the floor. That left Johnson with few options but to cut a bipartisan deal.
Speaking to reporters after the House vote, Johnson blamed the Senate for not passing appropriations bills and reaching no agreement on topline spending.
“So we’ve had no choice, but I want to assure everyone, and I’ve said this multiple times this week, we are not going to return to a Christmas omnibus spending tradition, and that’s significant,” Johnson said. “We worked very hard to break that tradition.”
House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole during floor debate applauded Johnson’s efforts, saying he made the best of a difficult hand.
“Like most, my preference would be to pass full-year appropriations bills through regular order, but we are out of time,” Cole, R-Okla., said during debate. “We cannot afford a shutdown, which would be greatly damaging to our national security, to critical government programs, and to the American people.”
Headed for the exits
The Senate’s unusually quick action allows members to hit the campaign trail for an extended October recess. The December end-date will allow lawmakers to see where the electoral chips fall before deciding whether they want to attempt to wrap up the fiscal 2025 spending bills this year.
While Appropriations Committee leaders in both chambers have said they want to give the new administration a clean slate by finishing this year, the speaker does not appear to be on their side. Johnson said this week he won’t bring any “buses” to the floor in the lame-duck session, either a giant omnibus package or smaller “minibuses.”
The short-term funding patch that will soon become law is fairly “clean” of extraneous provisions. It takes care of some urgent matters members on both sides sought, including an extra $231 million for Secret Service protection accounts and freeing up $20 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency for disaster relief starting Oct. 1.
But the stopgap bill leaves out several items that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle want to resolve in December. It omits additional disaster aid and $12 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs to address its health care shortfall. The administration also wanted a Social Security Administration funding boost to help improve customer service for beneficiaries, as well as extensions of expiring authorities to help finance Ukraine’s ongoing war against Russia.
House Democrats did not whip their membership either way on the bill, and noted that the lack of disaster and veterans money will “require December spending bills to provide this much-needed assistance.”
Still, Democrats on both sides of the Capitol strongly backed the stopgap bill, vowing to fight another day.
“It is never ideal to govern with a continuing resolution, but this is a responsible and sober measure that avoids many of the problems that would have been created with a six-month funding bill,” House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro said on the floor.
“No matter who wins in November, we owe it to the next Congress and the next president to not saddle them with yesterday’s problems,” DeLauro, D-Conn., added. “We know where we must end up, and it is my hope that this bill will provide the bipartisan momentum needed to arrive there.”
David Lerman contributed to this report.
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