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The House on Tuesday passed a stopgap measure that would fund federal agencies at existing levels through Dec. 4, in an effort to avert a potential government shutdown before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
The lower chamber voted 220-205 to pass the measure. Six Democrats and Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-Calif.) joined 213 Republicans in supporting the bill. Only one Republican opposed the bill.
The move comes as the House so far has only passed three appropriations bills funding national security, the State Department and other relevant programs; agriculture, rural development, the Food and Drug Administration and related agencies; and military construction, the Department of Veterans Affairs and related agencies. And over in the Senate, Republican and Democratic appropriators have yet to break through an impasse over government funding.
“The hard reality before us is straightforward – the fiscal year deadline is outpacing the work that remains. Our conference refuses to let the obstruction and inaction of Senate Democrats trigger another manufactured shutdown at the end of September. That is why we are acting before a funding lapse crisis, not in response to it,” House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in remarks on the House floor Tuesday.
“This clean, short-term continuing resolution simply keeps the government open, protects the progress we’ve made, and preserves the path to full-year appropriations,” Cole added.
The stopgap measure also includes a section that would appropriate $174,000 for payment each to Alfredia Scott, the wife of the late Democratic Rep. David Scott (Ga.), as well as to the “heirs at law” of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who died earlier this month.
Most Democrats, however, had railed against the stopgap measure ahead of the vote, arguing that it was drafted without bipartisan negotiation.
“If I am going to support a continuing resolution, it needs to continue government operations, exclude any poison pills, and it must maintain Congress’s constitutional authority over spending decisions,” House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said during a House Rules Committee hearing on Monday.
The measure now heads to the Senate, where it faces long odds amid the chamber’s 60-vote threshold and potential Democratic opposition.
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