The Republican-led House voted Tuesday to pass a six-month funding bill that would prevent a government shutdown at the end of the week, overcoming fierce Democratic objections.
The vote was 217-213, with all Republicans but Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky supporting the continuing resolution. One Democrat voted for it.
The measure now heads to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain. Republicans control 53 seats, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has made clear he’s firmly against it. That means at least eight Democratic senators would have to support the bill to cross the Senate’s 60-vote threshold and send it to President Donald Trump’s desk.Â
The government is set to run out of money late Friday.
Ahead of the vote, Senate Democrats criticized the partisan approach House Republicans took on the funding bill. But a significant number of them kept the door open to supporting it.
After an unusually long Senate Democratic lunch meeting Tuesday, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., declined to say whether he’d block the bill, a sign that his members lack consensus on the path forward.
“We’re going to wait and see what the House does first,” Schumer told reporters.
The legislation includes a slight increase in military spending and a moderate cut in domestic nondefense spending. It was crafted by GOP leaders, who took input from the White House and excluded Democrats from the process. House Democratic leaders strongly objected to the bill.
Ahead of the vote, House Republicans also approved a “rule” that would prohibit a vote in the first session of this Congress to terminate the “national emergency” Trump declared Feb. 1 to impose tariffs on U.S. imports from Canada, Mexico and China.
Over the past several days, Trump and his top aides called undecided Republicans to urge them to back the funding bill, multiple sources familiar with the calls said. And before the vote Tuesday morning, Vice President JD Vance huddled with House Republicans at the Capitol to rally support for the bill.
Rep. Kat Cammack, of Florida, one of the Republicans who were on the fence Tuesday morning, voted for the bill after, she said, she visited the White House earlier in the day.
A positive sign for Johnson coming into Tuesday was that the far-right House Freedom Caucus, which is frequently a thorn in the side of leadership, had endorsed the stopgap bill.
“I’m 100% behind this continuing resolution,” the caucus chairman, Andy Harris, R-Md., said in a rare appearance at Johnson’s leadership news conference Tuesday morning. “This is not your grandfather’s continuing resolution. This is a different type of spending bill.”
Democratic leaders staunchly opposed the six-month funding patch, blasting Republicans for pushing a bill they had no part in shaping. Democrats also objected to how the bill was structured, saying it gave the Trump administration too much discretion in how to spend certain pots of money.
And Democrats have pushed for guardrails on Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s attempts to slash or freeze some federal spending.
“This partisan and reckless Republican spending bill fails to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which we know are on the Republican chopping block,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., arguing that the funding bill will lay the groundwork for deeper spending cuts in a future reconciliation package. “It represents devastating cuts in an attack on seniors, families and veterans. We cannot support this bill.”
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., said before Tuesday’s House vote that he would vote for the GOP’s funding bill.
“I refuse to burn the village down and to claim to save it,” Fetterman said. “I probably won’t agree with many facets of that CR, but when the choice is about shutting the government down, I don’t want to be involved with that.”
Other Democrats said they’re watching to see what happens in the House vote before they announce their positions.
“I’ve got to wait to see the impact it has on Arizona,” Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., said Tuesday.
Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, said Tuesday he was concerned that the Trump administration might try to make a shutdown as painful as possible. He is also undecided on the bill.
“That’s one of the things we have to consider. We’re dealing with people, many of whom, I suspect, think a shutdown would be a good thing,” King said, “and they could prolong it and use it to expand the president’s power even beyond what they’re already considering. … This isn’t normal.”
Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., also kept his powder dry.
“I haven’t come out publicly at this point, just because I want to see what the House does,” he said, aligning with top Democratic appropriators who want a one-month extension to negotiate a new funding agreement. “I’m still hoping that there’s space for the 30-day extension,” he said.
