The House on Tuesday passed a funding bill to avert an end-of-the-week government shutdown, teeing up the measure for consideration in the Senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The chamber cleared the continuing resolution (CR) in a largely party-line 217-213 vote, with just one Democrat \u2014 Rep. Jared Golden\u2002<\/u><\/a>(D-Maine) \u2014 bucking his party\u2019s leaders to back the measure. Rep. Thomas Massie\u2002<\/u><\/a>(R-Ky.) was the lone GOP \u201cno\u201d vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The legislation would fund the government through Sept. 30<\/u><\/a>, the end of the fiscal year, while boosting funds for defense programs and imposing cuts to nondefense funding. Current funding expires at 11:59 p.m. Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis was a big vote on the House floor, the Republicans stood together and we had one Democrat vote with us to do the right thing, and that is to fund the government,\u201d Speaker Mike Johnson\u2002<\/u><\/a>(R-La.) said after the vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bill now heads to the Senate, where its future hangs in the balance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While several Senate Democrats have slammed the legislation \u2014 raising concerns about spending cuts included and instead pitching a shorter stopgap<\/u><\/a> to allow more time for bipartisan negotiations on full-year bills \u2014 a number of vulnerable members are withholding judgment, weighing their concerns<\/u><\/a> with the bill against the political reality of potentially forcing a shutdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer\u2002<\/u><\/a>(D-N.Y.), for his part, has walked a careful line when it comes to the politically prickly vote. Asked about the House GOP stopgap bill shortly before Tuesday\u2019s vote in the lower chamber, he was coy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to wait to see what the House does first,\u201d the top Democrat told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Passage of the stopgap in the House puts a pin on the first funding fight of Trump\u2019s second term in the lower chamber, which largely revolved around the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), overseen by Elon Musk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Republicans \u2014 many of whom are typically averse to continuing resolutions (CR) \u2014 rallied around the stopgap in the name of allowing DOGE to continue its work in reducing the size of the government. Democrats demanded, albeit unsuccessfully, to include language that would limit the DOGE\u2019s power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The successful vote marks a massive victory for Johnson, who unveiled the bill over the weekend, convinced nearly a dozen GOP holdouts to support the legislation, and ultimately muscled the CR through his razor-thin majority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The near-unanimous Republican support for the legislation came together in the final hours before the vote, with a handful of hard-line conservatives who expressed opposition to the bill ultimately throwing their support behind the effort. And in a significant boost, the House Freedom Caucus, which typically opposes stopgaps, formally backed the legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPresident Trump and Republicans in Congress will stop at nothing to deliver on that agenda,\u201d Johnson told reporters following the vote. \u201cWe are gonna continue to work hard, we will continue to stick together and get this job done, and it\u2019s an essential one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Approval of the measure is also a win for President Trump, who endorsed the stopgap and spoke with GOP opponents in the final hours before the vote, helping to flip the holdouts and get the measure over the finish line. Additionally, Vice President Vance talked to House Republicans during their closed-door conference meeting Tuesday morning, delivering a final pitch<\/u><\/a> in support of the legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n