WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives approved a bipartisan federal spending bill Friday and sent it to the Senate, just hours before a midnight deadline to fund the government. It was unclear Friday whether the Senate could pass the bill before 12:00 a.m. ET, when funding technically lapses.
The bill continues funding the federal government at current levels for three months, and provides disaster relief and farm aid.
The bill passed with significant Democratic support and votes from 2/3rds of the members present, a high bar that reflected the desire in both parties to avoid a costly shutdown that could jeopardize paychecks for hundreds of thousands of federal employees a few days before Christmas.
The bill has a realistic path to passing the Democratic-controlled Senate. But parliamentary procedure in the chamber gives more power to individual senators to jam up legislation.
“We will not have a government shutdown,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters in the Capitol Friday afternoon. “We will meet our obligations for our farmers who need aid, disaster victims all over the country and make sure that military and essential services and everyone that relies on the federal government for a paycheck is paid over the holidays.”
The vote capped off several days of chaos on Capitol Hill, during which Johnson tried, and failed, to meet the demands of President-elect Donald Trump.
Trump and his billionaire campaign donor Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO, doomed an initial, negotiated funding plan Wednesday by harshly criticizing its provisions, sending Republicans scrambling most of Thursday to find a replacement plan.
Specifically, Trump insisted that any deal to keep the government open must include a two-year suspension of the U.S. debt limit. The limit is the maximum the federal government can borrow to pay for its spending.
The debt ceiling is a recurring, bitter debate in Washington every few years, and one where the political party in the minority typically has a lot of leverage. Trump appears eager to avoid this fight during the start of his second term in office.
But authorizing the United States to borrow more money is a bridge too far for many hardline conservative Republicans.
This was evident when Thursday’s bill, which contained bare bones government funding and a debt limit hike, was resoundingly defeated. Joining nearly every Democrat were 38 rank-and-file Republicans who voted against it, after their party’s leader had publicly endorsed the deal.
Like Thursday’s failed vote, Friday’s passage — without Trump’s debt limit hike — served as a reminder to the incoming president of just how difficult it is to control the notoriously fractious House Republican caucus.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
