U.S. Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks to members of the press at the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 20, 2024 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Congress finally approved a stopgap spending bill early Saturday that will keep the government open for a few more months, after a raucous 48 hours that served as a preview of what President-elect Donald Trump’s second term in office might look like.

The short-term spending package, the third version of a bill to be released this week, will give lawmakers until mid-March to negotiate agreement on the dozen full-year government funding measures and provide about $100 billion in natural disaster assistance. 

Although it technically was passed by the Senate after the midnight deadline for a shutdown, deputy White House press secretary Emilie Simons said on X that agencies would continue normal operations. 

The House passed the bill Friday evening following a 366-34 vote with one Democrat voting “present.” The Senate voted 85-11 shortly after midnight Saturday. President Joe Biden signed the bill Saturday morning. 

The legislation did not include any language either raising or suspending the debt limit, rejecting a demand by Trump that it be addressed. Congress and Trump will have to deal with that next year when they control the House, Senate and the White House.

The 118-page bill will extend programs in the five-year farm bill through September, giving the House and Senate more time to broker a deal, even though they are already more than a year late.

The package would not block members of Congress from their first cost-of-living salary adjustment since January 2009, boosting lawmakers’ pay next year from $174,000 to a maximum of $180,600.

It does not include a provision considered earlier this week that would have allowed the year-round sale of E15 blended gasoline nationwide in what would have been a win for corn growers and biofuels.

The White House announced during the House vote that Biden supports the legislation.

“While it does not include everything we sought, it includes disaster relief that the President requested for the communities recovering from the storm, eliminates the accelerated pathway to a tax cut for billionaires, and would ensure that the government can continue to operate at full capacity,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wrote. “President Biden supports moving this legislation forward and ensuring that the vital services the government provides for hardworking Americans – from issuing Social Security checks to processing benefits for veterans — can continue as well as to grant assistance for communities that were impacted by devastating hurricanes.”

Appropriators at odds

House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., urged support for the bill during floor debate, saying it would avoid a partial government shutdown, provide disaster aid and send economic assistance to farmers.

“Governing by continuing resolution is never ideal, but Congress has a responsibility to keep the government open and operating for the American people,” Cole said. “The alternative, a government shutdown, would be devastating to our national defense and for our constituents and would be a grave mistake.”

Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, spoke against the bill and criticized GOP negotiators from walking away from the original, bipartisan version released Tuesday.

She rejected billionaire Elon Musk, a close Trump ally, seemingly calling the shots as if he were an elected lawmaker, though she ultimately voted for passage. 

“The United States Congress has been thrown into pandemonium,” DeLauro said. “It leads you to the question of who is in charge?”

Trump, Musk objections

Democrats and Republicans reached an agreement earlier this week to fund the government, provide disaster aid, extend the agriculture and nutrition programs in the farm bill, extend various health care programs and complete dozens of other items. But Trump intervened, preventing House GOP leaders from putting that bill on the floor for an up-or-down vote. 

Trump and Musk were unsupportive of some of the extraneous provisions in the original bill and Trump began pressing for lawmakers to address the debt limit now rather than during his second term.

House Republicans tried to pass their first GOP-only stopgap bill on Thursday night, but failed following a 174-235 vote, with 38 GOP lawmakers voting against the bill. That bill included a two-year debt limit suspension, but that was dropped from the version passed Friday. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said Friday before the vote that the GOP was united on its plan forward.

“We have a unified Republican Conference. There is a unanimous agreement in the room that we need to move forward,” Johnson said following a 90-minute closed-door meeting. “I expect that we will be proceeding forward. We will not have a government shutdown. And we will meet our obligations for our farmers, for the disaster victims all over the country, and for marking sure the military and essential services and everyone who relies on the federal government for a paycheck is paid over the holidays.”

A total of 34 House Republicans voted against the bill. No House Democrats voted against passage.

No shutdown, for now

The House and Senate not agreeing on some sort of stopgap spending bill before the Friday midnight deadline would have led to a funding lapse that would likely have led to a partial government shutdown just as the holidays begin.

During a shutdown, essential government functions that cover the protection of life and property continue, though no federal workers would have received their paychecks until after the shutdown ends. That loss of income would have extended to U.S. troops as well.

“If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration, not after January 20th, under “TRUMP,” the president-elect posted on social media Friday morning. “This is a Biden problem to solve, but if Republicans can help solve it, they will!”

In a separate post that went up just after 1 a.m. Eastern, Trump doubled down on his insistence that any short-term spending bill suspend the debt limit for another four years or eliminate the borrowing ceiling entirely.

“Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling,” Trump wrote. “Without this, we should never make a deal. Remember, the pressure is on whoever is President.”

 Congressional leaders unveiled a catch-all, year-end package Tuesday night that would provide disaster aid along with stopgap funding to keep the government running through mid-March. Heavy rains from Hurricane Helene caused record flooding and damage on Sept. 28 in Asheville, North Carolina. (Photo by Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders unveiled a catch-all, year-end package Tuesday that would provide more than $100 billion in disaster aid and give lawmakers more time to wrap up overdue work on government funding, the farm bill and a handful of other issues they decided not to finish.

The disaster aid section of the package will bolster funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Agriculture, the Small Business Administration and several other federal agencies to continue their ongoing response efforts following a slew of natural disasters during the last two years.

The 1,547-page package would give Congress until mid-March to complete work on the dozen annual government funding bills that were supposed to become law by Oct. 1.

It also extends the farm bill through Sept. 30, 2025. In a victory for corn growers, the bill includes a provision to allow nationwide sales of a gasoline blend that includes up to 15% ethanol throughout the year.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said during a press conference before the bill was publicly released he had hoped the year-end stopgap spending bill would simply extend current funding until next year, when the GOP will hold the House, Senate and White House.

“But a couple of intervening things have occurred. We had, as we describe them, acts of God. We had these massive hurricanes if you know, in the late fall — Helene and Milton and other disasters,” Johnson said. “We have to make sure that the Americans who were devastated by these hurricanes get the relief they need. So we are adding to this a disaster relief package and that’s critically important.”

“Also important is the devastation that is being faced by our farming community,” he said. “The agriculture sector is really struggling. They’ve had effectively three lost years and commodity prices are a bit of a mess. And you have input costs that have skyrocketed because of Bidenomics.”

Johnson defended his decision to attach the other provisions in the stopgap spending bill, also known as a continuing resolution. Numerous Republicans have expressed frustration with his choice to bundle all the bills together in one package, instead of moving them individually.

“We have to be able to help those who are in these dire straits and that’s what the volume of the pages to this is,” Johnson said.

House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, said in a written statement she would support the bill when that chamber votes on it later this week.

“While I — and so many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle — wish we were voting on full-year funding bills, I am pleased that this package includes important resources for American farmers, emergency defense investments, investments in the Virginia Class submarine program, and increased funding for child care,” DeLauro wrote. “It also includes outbound investment protections I have long fought for to prevent American dollars from fueling the Chinese Communist Party’s policies with our capital and capabilities.”

“However, I am concerned that we could not agree on additional funding for veterans health care, and we must be vigilant in ensuring that the incoming Administration does not ration care promised to every affected veteran,” DeLauro added. “The passage of this bill should mark the beginning of negotiations on final 2025 funding bills. The start of a new Congress does not change the reality that any funding bills will still need the support of Democrats and Republicans in the House and in the Senate in order to become law.”

Hurricanes, tornadoes, bridge collapse

President Joe Biden asked Congress to approve nearly $100 billion in emergency aid to bolster the accounts of several agencies that are helping residents, small businesses, farmers, and local and state governments recover from dozens of natural disasters.

The emergency supplemental request came shortly after Hurricanes Helene and Milton caused widespread devastation throughout Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

The funding will also help communities recover following tornadoes throughout the Midwest; the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland; and severe storms in Alaska, Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The disaster response section of the spending package would include:

• $29 billion for FEMA’s disaster relief fund

• $21 billion for disaster assistance for farmers and ranchers

• $12 billion for the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s community development block grant program for disaster assistance

• $10 billion in economic assistance for farmers and ranchers

• $8 billion for the Department of Transportation to provide disaster relief for federal highways

• $3.25 billion for State and Tribal Assistance Grants for water infrastructure repairs.

• $2.2 billion for the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program

• $1.3 billion to replace the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland

Congress headed for finish line

The package is expected to pass the House and Senate before members depart for their holiday break on Friday. Biden is expected to sign the bill into law.

When Congress convenes again on Jan. 3 for the start of the 119th Congress, the Senate will flip from Democratic to Republican control. The House will remain red, though with a slightly smaller majority and very little, possibly no, room for GOP lawmakers to vote against partisan bills.

Republicans hope they can use unified control of Washington, which will begin after President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, to move through sweeping changes to federal spending and policy.

That is one of the reasons, Congress included a second continuing resolution in the package released this week. That stopgap spending bill will avoid a partial government shutdown until at least March 14.

That part of the bill is necessary since Congress has brushed off its responsibility to fund the government by failing to complete work on the dozen annual appropriations bills before the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1.

Lawmakers approved another stopgap spending bill in late September to keep funding levels mostly flat through Dec. 20, but did not use the extra time to negotiate a compromise between the Republican House and Democratic Senate.

GOP leaders have opted to hold over those full-year government funding measures until they control both chambers of Congress next year, in hopes they’ll be able to more closely align the final versions of the 12 bills to their goals.

But Republican leaders will still need Democratic support to get the final spending bills, or another stopgap spending bill, through the Senate next year if they want to avoid a partial government shutdown.

The Senate requires at least 60 lawmakers to vote to advance major legislation toward a final, simple majority passage vote. The GOP will hold 53 seats next year, short of the requirement. Several Republican senators have also staked their reputations on consistently voting against any spending bill, making Democratic votes necessary to avoid a shutdown.

Republicans in the House will also likely need Democrats to move government funding bills through that chamber, given they too have a significant faction of members who refuse to vote for the full-year spending bills and often vote against the short-term stopgap bills as well. 

Farm bill extension

The end-of-year catchall bill released Tuesday also includes another extension for the farm bill through next year, a new version of which Congress was supposed to pass more than a year ago.

Instead, lawmakers in both chambers have prioritized other interests, delaying work on the legislation that authorizes agriculture and nutrition programs.

Congress last approved a farm bill in December 2018, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said at the time would cost $428 billion during the five years it was supposed to cover.

Funding for nutrition, crop insurance, farm commodity programs and conservation accounted for about 99% of the mandatory spending in the law, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Nutrition has become one of the higher price tag items in the farm bill during the last few decades and accounted for about $326 billion of the mandatory spending in the 2018 farm bill. Another $38 billion went to crop insurance, $31 billion to commodities and $29 billion to conservation during the five-year window that has since lapsed.

The nutrition funding goes toward several federal food programs for lower income people, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP and the Emergency Food Assistance Program. 

The Republican House and Democratic Senate have been unable to work through their differences on a new five-year farm bill, despite giving themselves more than a year of extra time.

The bill lawmakers are set to approve this month will give unified Republicans in control of Washington another year to get the work done.

D.C. Deputy Bureau Chief Jacob Fischler contributed to this report. 

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, answers reporters' questions inside the Capitol building on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republican leaders said Tuesday voters have given them a “mandate” to enact as much conservative policy as possible once they gain unified control of the federal government in January, but declined to provide details about exactly what policies they’d seek to enact.

“The American people want us to implement and deliver that America first agenda,” said Speaker Mike Johnson. “And we have to do that while we have that energy and that excitement, beginning on the very first day of the Congress in the new year.”

The Louisiana Republican said the election results showed that Americans want lawmakers to focus their attention on “secure borders” and preventing “terrorists and criminals from entering the country.”

“They want and deserve low costs for groceries and gasoline,” Johnson said. “They want us to project strength on the world stage again and not the weakness that we have projected for the last four years. They want an end to the wokeness and the radical gender ideology and a return to common sense in our children’s classrooms and corporate boardrooms and government agencies. We’re going to ensure all that’s true.”

Not at 218 quite yet

The Associated Press, the news organization that States Newsroom relies upon for race calls based on decades of experience, hadn’t called the House for Republicans as of Tuesday, but was expected to in the coming days.

GOP politicians have won 214 seats so far, just short of the 218 minimum needed to hold the majority, though they’ll need a few more seats for safe margins after President-elect Donald Trump nominated a few of their colleagues to posts in his next administration.

Democrats are projected to hold at least 205 seats in the House, with 16 races yet to be called by the AP. That will give Republicans a slim majority when the next Congress begins in January and not much room to lose votes from either centrist or far-right members.

GOP lawmakers will hold 53 seats in the U.S. Senate next year after flipping seats previously held by Democrats in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, according to the AP.

Johnson said during the press conference on the steps of the Capitol building that he expected the GOP will hold a larger majority during the next Congress than the 220 seats it currently has.

But he cautioned that every Republican vote will matter since the party isn’t likely to have a large majority.

“Every single vote will count because if someone gets ill or has a car accident or a late flight on their plane, then it affects the votes on the floor,” Johnson said. 

Republicans in Congress, he said, are coordinating closely with Trump, who is expected to meet with lawmakers on Wednesday at the Capitol before Johnson heads to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida this weekend to hash out details of a legislative agenda with him. 

“President Trump is going to meet with President Biden at the White House. And so it was suggested … that he wanted to come and visit with House Republicans,” Johnson said. “So we’re working out the details of him gathering with us, potentially tomorrow morning, before he goes to the White House. And that would be a great meeting and a moment for all of us. There’s a lot of excitement, a lot of energy here.” 

Details on reforms to come

Holding unified control of government will allow Republicans to use the complicated budget reconciliation process to pass legislation without needing the bipartisan support that’s typically required to get past the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster.

Johnson said the party is looking to employ that process for any policy areas that comply with the instructions, which allow lawmakers to make changes to revenue, spending, or the debt that are not “merely incidental” as part of the $6 trillion federal budget.

“We have lots of very specific plans to kind of do that, and the details of that will come together in the coming week,” he said.

Johnson said he didn’t want to “get into any details about any specifics with regards to reforms,” after being asked if Republicans would get rid of the Department of Education, one of Trump’s campaign promises.

“There’s lots of ideas on the table, but we got to work together, build consensus, work in coordination with the Trump administration on the order of the reforms and how we do it,” Johnson said. “So I’m not getting ready to give you details on that. But you can stay tuned.” 

Congress is in recess in the leadup to Election Day, but will return afterward for a lame-duck session. Pictured is the U.S. Capitol on March 14, 2024. (Jennifer Shutt | States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress left Capitol Hill last week to focus their attention on the campaign trail during the six weeks leading up to Election Day, leaving much of their work unfinished.

The Republican House and Democratic Senate are scheduled to remain on recess until Nov. 12, though the urgent needs created in the wake of Hurricane Helene, which are fully funded for the moment, could bring the chambers back into session before then.

When lawmakers do return to Washington, D.C., they’ll need to address the must-pass legislation they’ve left on autopilot instead of negotiating new bipartisan compromises.

So far this year, lawmakers have pushed off reaching brokering agreement on must-pass measures like the farm bill as well as this year’s batch of government funding bills and the annual defense policy legislation.

Kids’ online safety, radiation exposure

There are also a handful of measures that have passed one chamber with broad bipartisan support, but haven’t been taken up on the other side of the Capitol that leadership could decide to move forward during November or December.

For example, an interesting combination of senators, led by Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn, are advocating for House Republican leaders to hold votes on a pair of online safety bills designed to better protect children from the darker side of the internet.

The rail safety bill drafted by a bipartisan group of senators from Ohio and Pennsylvania after the train derailment in East Palestine remains unaddressed following more than a year of intransigence.

And legislation to reauthorize the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA, which passed the Senate on a broadly bipartisan vote earlier this year, sits on a shelf collecting dust in the House.

Cancer victims, Indigenous communities and many others have pressed House GOP leadership to hold a vote to reauthorize the program after it expired this summer, but they have avoided it due to cost.

Five-week lame duck

Lawmakers interviewed by States Newsroom and congressional leaders all indicated the outcome of the November elections will have significant sway on what Congress approves during the five-week lame-duck session that spans November and December.

All interviews took place before Hurricane Helene made landfall and Israel was directly attacked by Iran, both of which are likely to be at the top of congressional leaders’ to-do lists.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune said it’s “hard to say” what, if anything, Congress will approve during the lame-duck session.

“I think a lot will be shaped by what happens in November,” the South Dakota Republican said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said just a day before Hurricane Helene made landfall that Democrats would advocate for passing natural disaster response funding previously requested by the Biden administration.

“Extreme weather events are on the rise and they affect everyone — in blue states, purple states and red states,” Jeffries said. “This is not a partisan issue, it’s an American issue in terms of being there, in times of need for everyday Americans, who have had their lives and livelihood upended.”

Other House Democratic priorities during the lame duck include approving the dozen full-year government funding bills that were supposed to be completed before Oct. 1, the defense policy bill that had the same deadline and the farm bill, which is more than a year overdue.

Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley said he “sure hopes” the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act reauthorization bill reaches the president’s desk before the end of the year.

He didn’t rule out lobbying to attach it to a must-pass government funding bill, but said the real hurdle is House GOP leaders.

“It doesn’t need help in the Senate. It just needs the House,” Hawley said. “I’ve had good, productive conversations with Speaker [Mike] Johnson in the last few weeks, and I appreciate his personal engagement on this, and I hope that that will lead to action.”

Haley said the House allowing RECA to expire, preventing people who qualify for the program from receiving benefits, was “outrageous.”

Defense priorities, farm bill

Senate Armed Services Chair Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, said staff would work during October to bridge the differences between the two chambers on the annual defense policy bill, called the National Defense Authorization Act.

Those staff-level talks will lay the foundation for Republicans and Democrats to meet once they return to Capitol Hill following the elections.

“We have to be ready when we come back to go right to the ‘Big Four’ meeting,” he said, referring to the top leaders in both chambers. “That’s our objective.”

Reed said many of the differences between the House and the Senate aren’t typical Defense Department policy issues per se, but are “more political, cultural, social.”

Congress may begin to debate additional military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine this year, though that’s more likely to happen next year, Reed said.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said she was making a “big push” for the House and Senate to reach agreement on the farm bill in the months ahead, though she cautioned talks don’t actually constitute a conference.

“I wouldn’t call it a conference; technically to have a conference, you have to have a bill passed by the House and a bill passed by the Senate, which will not happen,” Stabenow said.

“But I believe that there is a way,” Stabenow added. “I believe there’s a way to get a bipartisan bill.”

Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, the top Republican on the Agriculture panel, said lawmakers didn’t need the election results to “start working through our disagreements” on the farm bill, adding there’s some new momentum in talks.

“I think what’s changed is that there is a recognition among members, all members, how difficult it is right now as a farmer,” Boozman said. “So that’s really what’s changed in the last three or four months. It’s developing a real sense of urgency for these folks.”

Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst said the election outcome could influence what lawmakers choose to accomplish during the lame-duck session.

“There’s any number of scenarios, whether it’s NDAA, whether it’s farm bill, whether it’s anything else,” she said. “But it comes down to Leader Schumer.” New York Democrat Chuck Schumer is the majority leader in the Senate.

Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said he expects Congress will broker some agreement on government funding legislation and the NDAA, but not necessarily anything else.

“In an odd way, the better the Dems do on Nov. 5, the more we’ll get done,” Kaine said. “Because I think if the House is going to flip back to Dem, I think the Rs will say, ‘Well, let’s get a whole lot of stuff done before the House goes down.’ So I think the better we do, the more we’ll get done in the lame duck.”

Kaine said if Democrats do well in the elections, they might not need to approve additional aid for Ukraine this Congress, since that funding can last into next year.

“If we don’t do well in the [elections], we might need to do it in the lame duck,” Kaine said. “So that’ll all depend.”

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The U.S. Capitol on Sept. 23, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Congress is on track to approve legislation this week that will give lawmakers until mid-December to broker agreement on the annual government funding bills that were supposed to become law before the end of this month.

The stopgap spending bill, also known as a continuing resolution, has the broad bipartisan support it needs to move through House and Senate votes this week, though senators will need to reach agreement to vote on the legislation before the Oct. 1 deadline when federal spending runs out.

The 49-page bill, released Sunday after weeks of stalemate as House Republicans went at it alone, is no guarantee that Congress will actually wrap up its work on the full-year bills during the next 12 weeks left before this session of Congress is over, since lawmakers can pass as many stopgap spending bills as they want.

Continuing resolutions essentially extend current spending levels and policy for a set amount of time. They are intended to give the House and Senate additional time to conference final versions of the dozen full-year spending bills.

Nov. 5 election and the lame duck

The election results will likely determine whether the Republican House and Democratic Senate move to reach agreement on the full-year bills during the lame-duck session that will begin after Election Day, or kick the can down the road into next year, when the balance of power could be substantially different.

Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, appears inclined toward wrapping up work on the full-year appropriations bills in December, saying during a press conference Tuesday that lawmakers would deal with funding decisions during the lame-duck session.

Johnson signaled that he’s going to try to move all the final, conferenced spending bills across the floor one by one, as opposed to bundling all 12 together in an omnibus or packaging several of the bills together in what’s called a mini-bus. Such large bills regularly draw opposition from conservative Republicans.

“We have broken the Christmas omni and I have no intention of going back to that terrible tradition,” Johnson said. “We don’t want any buses, we’re not going to do any buses.”

The stopgap spending bill Congress is expected to approve this week would set the next deadline for government funding on Dec. 20, four days before Christmas.

Senate and House both struggle

Johnson also laid the blame for Congress not completing work on the full-year government funding bills at the feet of Senate Democrats, arguing that the House did all of its work.

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved 11 of the dozen appropriations bills with broadly bipartisan votes, but was unable to garner consensus on the Homeland Security spending bill.

None of those bills have come up on the Senate floor for votes, in part, because it can take weeks in that chamber to move spending bills through the amendment process.

The House Appropriations Committee reported its dozen bills out along party-line votes, without the Democratic support that would be needed for the bills to actually become law during divided government.

House Republican leaders passed five of the bills across the floor, including Defense, Homeland Security, Interior-Environment, Military Construction-VA and State-Foreign Operations.

House GOP leaders attempted to pass the Legislative Branch bill, which provides funding for Congress and its associated agencies, but were unsuccessful. House rules allow that chamber to debate and hold votes on bills in a matter of hours, a much faster pace than the days or weeks it often takes the Senate.

Neither Senate leaders nor House leadership have made any effort to conference the full-year spending bills, a process that is needed to reach the bipartisan, bicameral versions that must pass if Congress wants to avoid another stopgap spending bill in December.

The process typically takes at least six weeks, and with both chambers set to leave town at the end of this week for a six-week break, there likely won’t be enough time to conference all the bills before the mid-December deadline that will be set by the continuing resolution.

‘Stay away from poison pills’

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, criticized Johnson for trying to pass a six-month stopgap spending bill through the House earlier this month, saying it was a waste of time.

That legislation, which didn’t garner the support to pass, included with it a GOP bill that would have required proof of citizenship to register to vote.

“If both sides keep working together, if we stay away from poison pills and partisan spectacle, then the American people can rest assured there won’t be a government shutdown,” Schumer said. “But we still have more work to do.”

The Biden administration signaled its support for the stopgap spending bill Tuesday, releasing a Statement of Administration Policy calling “for swift passage of this bill in both chambers of the Congress to avoid a costly, unnecessary Government shutdown and to ensure there is adequate time to pass full-year FY 2025 appropriations bills later this year.”

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Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, shown walking to his office in this January 2024 photo, didn't rule out the possibility Wednesday of a funding lapse Oct. 1 as Congress debates a short-term government funding bill. (Anna Rose Layden | Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Congress has 12 days left to approve a short-term government funding bill before the shutdown deadline, though leaders in the Republican House and Democratic Senate haven’t felt the need to start negotiations just yet.

House GOP leaders, instead, attempted to pass a six-month continuing resolution Wednesday that carried with it a bill requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, but were unsuccessful.

The 202-220 vote in the House, with two members voting present and 14 Republicans in opposition, came shortly after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump called on lawmakers to force a government shutdown as leverage to enact the voter ID law.

“If Republicans don’t get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form,” Trump wrote on social media, doubling down on a shutdown statement he made last week.

The unsuccessful House vote could provide space for Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, to negotiate with the Senate.

But, with just one week left in the session before Congress departs for a six-week election break, there’s not much time for leaders to find consensus, draft a bill, hold votes in both chambers and secure President Joe Biden’s signature.

Johnson, asked repeatedly by reporters Wednesday about the possibility of a shutdown, didn’t entirely rule out a funding lapse beginning on Oct. 1.

“We’ll see what happens with the bill,” Johnson said before the vote. “We’re on the field in the middle of the game, the quarterback is calling the play, we’re going to run the play.”

Blaming the Senate

Johnson criticized the Senate for not being further along in the annual appropriations process, seeking to place the blame for a stopgap spending bill and a possible shutdown on that chamber.

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved 11 full-year government funding bills with broadly bipartisan votes this summer, but experienced challenges with the Homeland Security funding measure.

The House Appropriations Committee approved all dozen of its bills along party-line votes and was able to move five of those across the floor with GOP support, but not broad backing from Democrats.

House and Senate leaders haven’t allowed the two chambers to begin conferencing the bills that have either passed out of committee or off the floor, despite that being a regular occurrence in past years.

It’s highly unlikely leaders will bring any more of the full-year spending bills to the floor this fall, making the election results the biggest piece of the puzzle that will change between now and the end of the calendar year.

McConnell: Shutdown would be ‘politically, beyond stupid’

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has repeatedly called on his colleagues to avoid a shutdown, though he hasn’t jumped in to negotiate a stopgap bill and doesn’t seem inclined to do so.

“I think we first have to wait and see what the House sends us,” McConnell said during a Tuesday press conference. “My only observation about this whole discussion is the one thing you cannot have is a government shutdown. It would be, politically, beyond stupid for us to do that right before the election because, certainly, we’d get the blame.”

McConnell then referenced the saying that there’s no “education in the second kick of a mule” and noted funding the government for a few more months will “ultimately end up being a discussion between” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Johnson.

“I’m for whatever avoids a government shutdown,” McConnell added.

Election year drama

Leaning on a stopgap spending bill has been a regular part of Congress’ annual appropriations process for nearly three decades. During that time, lawmakers have consistently failed to approve all the full-year government funding bills before the Oct. 1 deadline.

The September struggle to approve a continuing resolution, which is intended to give lawmakers a bit more time to reach bicameral agreement on the full-year spending bills, has become increasingly dramatic with election-year politics ratcheting up the posturing this year.

In divided government, any legislation to fund the government must be bipartisan, or it all but guarantees a shutdown.

The House’s failed six-month continuing resolution also wasn’t supported by most Senate Republicans.

GOP senators argued it was too lengthy and could have hindered that chamber’s ability to confirm the next president’s Cabinet during the first few months of 2025.

Senate Republicans and defense hawks in the House also said that leaving the Department of Defense on autopilot for half of the next fiscal year was an abdication of Congress’ responsibility and a threat to national security.

December end date eyed

The final stopgap spending bill that Congress approves in the days ahead will likely last through Dec. 20, the final day this year that Congress is scheduled to be in session. It is also unlikely to include the voter registration ID component.

That final, bipartisan continuing resolution could also include a plus-up in spending for the Secret Service or a provision that allows the agency to spend its stopgap allocation at a faster rate to bolster Trump’s security following two apparent assassination attempts.

Florida Republican Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, chairman of the State-Foreign Operations spending panel, said Wednesday that if he was a betting man, he’d expect Congress to pass a stopgap spending bill through mid-December.

“The first thing is, we can’t have a shutdown,” Díaz-Balart said. “I think most people here understand that that would be catastrophic, particularly when half the world is in flames.”

During a government shutdown, some federal workers continue reporting to the office without pay while the rest are furloughed until Congress approves a new funding bill. All federal employees impacted by a shutdown receive back pay.

A shutdown this October would affect all the departments and agencies funded within the annual process, including the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and State.

Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson, chairman of the Interior-Environment appropriations subcommittee, said he was sure there would be no shutdown but didn’t detail how exactly Congress would broker a bipartisan agreement in the days ahead.

“I don’t think anybody wants to shut the government down,” Simpson said. “That’s not a viable option.”

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