House passes stopgap bill to avert government shutdown

The House approved a three-month government funding bill Wednesday to avoid an end-of-the-month shutdown, sending the package to the Senate for consideration.

The chamber cleared the legislation — which would fund the government at current levels until Dec. 20 — in a 341-82 vote, including support from 209 Democrats and 132 Republicans. All 82 “no” votes came from Republicans.

The Senate is expected to pass the stopgap Wednesday night, then dispatch it to President Biden’s desk for his signature ahead of the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline.

The legislation also includes $231 million in funding for the U.S. Secret Service after the pair of assassination attempts of former President Trump.

Passage of the package, which came just before lawmakers left Washington until after the November elections, caps off this month’s funding fight in the House. It included a failed attempt by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to pass a partisan stopgap, a push by Trump to shut down the government over the absence of a voting bill, and bipartisan negotiations that led to the final product.

The bill passed under suspension of the rules, requiring two-thirds support. Johnson had to abandon plans to bring it up through a regular procedural process due to opposition from some in the right flank that threatened to block it.

This year’s battle over government funding, however, is not over: The three-month stopgap sets the stage for another shutdown showdown in December, during the lame-duck period, when lawmakers will have to cobble together a spending bill to keep the lights on in Washington past the new deadline.

Johnson has vowed that the House will not approve a sprawling omnibus bill to avert a December shutdown, a statement that is welcome news for hard-line conservatives who abhor the whole-of-government measures. But will be a difficult goal to achieve as he grapples with a razor-thin GOP majority, a Democratic-controlled Senate and White House, and pressure to fund the government and leave town ahead of the Christmas holiday.

The December dynamics will also be highly influenced by who wins the House, Senate and White House in November.

The Speaker, nonetheless, re-upped his pledge after Wednesday’s vote.

“I want to assure everyone, and I’ve said this multiple times this week: We are not going to return a Christmas omnibus spending tradition, and that’s a commitment I’ve made to everyone,” he said.

Asked if he would commit to not putting any omnibus on the floor, Johnson responded: “I’ve said very clear, we’re not going to return to the omnibus tradition.”

“We’ll see what happens in December,” he added.

Some Republicans, however, are having doubts about that promise. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who voted against the stopgap on Wednesday, said “I’m a little skeptical, history bears out that a December spending fight usually doesn’t go very well for the American people.”

“We’ll see what happens this December,” he added. “I’m hopeful that the Speaker means what he says on that, I believe him when he says it, but we gotta go see what happens.”

How Johnson handles the looming funding fight in December could have implications not only on a potential government shutdown, but also his fate atop the House GOP conference. Johnson has indicated that he wants to remain Speaker if Republicans keep control of the lower chamber, but some hardline conservatives have said they will not support him — a dynamic that will put increased focus on his actions surrounding government funding later this year.

Johnson’s road to funding the government on Wednesday was characterized by the pressure he faced from hardline conservatives — including those in the House Freedom Caucus — who pushed for a longer-term continuing resolution that included a bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote in U.S. elections, titled the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. Trump also advocated for the inclusion of the SAVE Act, urging GOP lawmakers to let the government shutdown if the legislation was not included in the final product.

The Speaker heeded those requests in his opening salvo for the funding fight, putting forward a six-month stopgap that included the SAVE Act. That package, however, failed on the House floor after 14 Republicans voted down the legislation. The crop of opposition included hardliners who were against the use of a continuing resolution and defense hawks who were concerned about the impact the six-month timeline would have on the Pentagon.

Johnson then huddled with bipartisan leaders in the House and Senate to develop the three-month stopgap, which dropped the SAVE Act — much to the chagrin of hardline House Republicans, many of whom voted against the legislation on Wednesday.

“I will not support the DC addiction to overspending. We must bring fiscal sanity back to America and get real results. We must force Schumer to pass H.R. 2 to secure our borders. We must have election integrity to secure our elections,” Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) wrote on X. “I will vote NO on a clean CR.”

As the lower chamber prepared to vote on the stopgap Wednesday, Trump was making calls to some House Republicans pushing them to support an alternative spending package: A three-month continuing resolution that included voting provisions, sources told The Hill.

Trump called some of the 14 Republicans who opposed the stopgap with the SAVE Act last week, and many of them were on board with his plan, the sources said. In the end, however, Johnson plowed ahead with his three-month funding measure, defying the wishes of Trump that voting provisions be included in the legislation.

Updated at 7:38 p.m.