U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., left, and U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La.,  look on during a menorah lighting ceremony during a Hanukkah reception at the U.S. Capitol Building on Dec. 17, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House failed to pass a Republican stopgap spending package Thursday, sharply increasing the odds a partial government shutdown will begin after the current funding bill expires Friday at midnight. 

The 174-235 House vote came less than three hours after GOP leaders released a second stopgap spending bill this week. The first version, released just two days ago, was widely rejected by President-elect Donald Trump as well as his allies on and off Capitol Hill.

A total of 38 GOP lawmakers and 197 Democrats voted against passage. Only two Democrats voted in support of the measure. One Democrat voted “present.”

House Republicans tried to approve the new measure under a process called suspension of the rules, which required at least two-thirds of lawmakers to support the legislation for passage, including Democrats. Trump endorsed this new version, which included a two-year suspension of the debt limit.

GOP leaders could next try to put the failed bill up for a vote under a rule, which requires a simple majority vote to approve, but that path takes a few more steps and isn’t a guarantee this legislation could pass.

House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said during floor debate the bill was necessary to avoid a shutdown and provide disaster aid to states throughout the country.

“We need to provide the necessary disaster recovery aid for states and communities as our fellow citizens rebuild and restore. The relief efforts are ongoing — it will be months, if not years, before life returns to normal,” Cole said.

No input from Democrats

Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, rebuked GOP lawmakers for walking away from the deal both parties reached on the first stopgap package.

“There were things in it that Democrats liked and Republicans did not, and there were things in it that Republicans liked and Democrats would have preferred to leave out. But that is the nature of government funding bills,” DeLauro said. “They require compromise and the support of Democrats and Republicans.”

The legislation House lawmakers were about to vote on had no input from Democrats, she said.

While Republicans have a narrow majority in the House, Democrats control the Senate and the White House, making bipartisan agreement on legislation essential to it becoming law.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wrote in a statement released Thursday just before the vote that the GOP was “doing the bidding of their billionaire benefactors at the expense of hardworking Americans.”

“Republicans are breaking their word to support a bipartisan agreement that would lower prescription drug costs and make it harder to offshore jobs to China — and instead putting forward a bill that paves the way for tax breaks for billionaires while cutting critical programs working families count on, from Social Security to Head Start,” she wrote. “President Biden supports the bipartisan agreement to keep the government open, help communities recovering from disasters, and lower costs — not this giveaway for billionaires that Republicans are proposing at the 11th hour.”

Trump calls new bill ‘a very good deal’

The stopgap spending package that failed Thursday night would have kept the government funded through mid-March while boosting disaster aid by about $100 billion.

The legislation would have suspended the nation’s debt limit for an additional two years through January 2027 and given Congress until September to finish the much overdue farm bill.

Trump cheered the new version of the stopgap spending bill before the vote after rejecting the first version released just two days ago.

“Speaker Mike Johnson and the House have come to a very good Deal for the American People,” Trump wrote on social media. “The newly agreed to American Relief Act of 2024 will keep the Government open, fund our Great Farmers and others, and provide relief for those severely impacted by the devastating hurricanes.”

“A VERY important piece, VITAL to the America First Agenda, was added as well – The date of the very unnecessary Debt Ceiling will be pushed out two years, to January 30, 2027,” Trump added. “Now we can Make America Great Again, very quickly, which is what the People gave us a mandate to accomplish.”

Two days of tension

The second stopgap bill came after a dramatic 48 hours that began with the Tuesday night release of a different stopgap spending package before Trump’s ally Elon Musk called on GOP lawmakers to reject the bill their leadership team on Capitol Hill had negotiated over weeks.

Trump then told Republicans to address the debt limit in the package or get rid of it entirely, throwing another complex issue into the mix at the last minute.

The core elements of the stopgap spending package House Republicans released Thursday afternoon were similar to the Tuesday night package, though it dropped dozens of measures, including a provision allowing the nationwide sale of 15% ethanol blended gasoline year round.

The new package, same as the old package, doesn’t include a long-standing provision that prevents members of Congress from receiving a cost of living adjustment. Unless that’s changed, lawmakers would receive a 3.8% raise next year increasing their annual salary from $174,000 to $180,600.

“It removed key provisions to limit the power of pharmaceutical companies, and abandons our bipartisan efforts to ensure American dollars and intellectual property are reinvested in American businesses and workers; instead of fueling the Chinese Communist Party’s technology and capabilities,” DeLauro said during debate.

The new 116-page stopgap spending bill was considerably shorter than the 1,547-page version released Tuesday.

Several new deadlines

The spending package would have given Congress until March 14 to complete work on the dozen annual government funding bills that were supposed to become law by the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1.

It would have given the House and Senate until Sept. 30, 2025, to reach agreement on the five-year farm bill, which lawmakers were supposed to negotiate a new version of more than a year ago.

The legislation would suspend the debt limit through Jan. 30, 2027.

The bill includes tens of billions in emergency spending to help communities throughout the country recover from various natural disasters, including wildfires, tornadoes and hurricanes.

A summary of the bill, released by House Democrats on Tuesday, showed the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Department of Agriculture would receive the bulk of the natural disaster recovery funding. House Republicans didn’t appear to have altered any of the original funding levels for disaster aid in the updated Thursday version.

The USDA would get $33.5 billion in funding, with $21 billion of that designated for disaster assistance and another $10 billion for economic assistance to farmers and producers.

Other agriculture assistance funding would go toward the Agriculture Research Service, Emergency Watershed Protection Program, Emergency Forest Restoration Program and Rural Development Disaster Assistance Fund, among several others.

The Department of Homeland Security would receive $30.8 billion in funding, with $29 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund.

An additional $1.5 billion would go to the Hermit’s Peak and Calf Canyon Fire fund “to continue efforts to support families who suffered damages due to the April 2022 wildfire,” according to the summary. 

The wildfire was the largest in New Mexico’s history and caused about $5.14 billion in damages, according to a report released this week.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant program for disaster recovery would receive $12 billion in additional funding.

Another $8 billion would go to the Transportation Department to “reimburse states and territories for damage from natural disasters to roads and bridges in the National Highway System, including 100 percent of costs associated with rebuilding the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore,” according to Democrats’ summary.

The Forest Service would get $6.4 billion for ongoing recovery efforts from natural disasters that took place in 2022, 2023 and this year. The National Park Service would receive $2.3 billion as part of the Department of the Interior’s $3 billion total.

The Defense Department would get $3.4 billion to repair damages related to natural disasters. The Army Corps of Engineers would receive $1.5 billion for repairs and to increase resiliency.

The Small Business Administration would receive $2.25 billion for disaster loans.

Filibuster threat

Shortly before House GOP leaders announced their second stopgap package, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham committed to holding a talking filibuster to delay passage of any stopgap funding measures if that bill doesn’t include substantial disaster aid.

The two, along with North Carolina Sen. Ted Budd, all of whom are Republicans, held a press conference Thursday afternoon to urge GOP leaders in the House to keep the roughly $100 billion in emergency disaster aid in any short-term spending package.

They also rejected calls from some members of their own party to find ways to pay for the new emergency spending, saying that’s not how disaster aid packages have traditionally been handled.

“When you’re in the middle of a crisis, I don’t think anybody’s going to want to hear somebody come to the floor and talk about the fiscal responsibility of giving these people a home again, or giving them an opportunity to open up a business again and employ people,” Tillis said. “So, no I don’t think $10 billion or $20 billion, and ‘I promise we’ll do something more in March’ is an acceptable solution. We know what the need is today. It was negotiated in a package and it needs to be in a package to get my support to get out of here.” 

Graham sought to explain the realities of divided government and pointed out that even when Republicans control the House and Senate next year, they’ll still need Democratic support on spending bills.

“We need 60 votes to get it done in the Senate,” Graham said, referring to the chamber’s legislative filibuster, which requires at least 60 lawmakers vote to advance bills toward final passage.

“Mike Johnson is going to have to pick up a handful, at least, of Democrats, because there’s some Republicans who will never vote for anything,” Graham added.

Tillis was unable to answer a question about whether a partial government shutdown beginning Saturday at 12:01 a.m. would affect the federal government’s ongoing natural disaster response in his home state.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Agriculture, Department of Transportation and numerous federal departments would be required to follow their shutdown guidance if Congress doesn’t fund the government on time.

Those departments and agencies divide up their staffs into excepted employees, whose jobs address the protection of life or property, and non-excepted employees, who don’t.

Neither category of federal employee gets paid until after the shutdown ends.

American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley released a written statement Thursday that a shutdown would harm federal workers who “inspect our food, protect our borders, ensure safe travel during the holidays, and provide relief to disaster victims.”

“Over 642,000 of them are veterans of our armed services,” Kelley wrote. “Allowing them to go without a paycheck over the holidays is unacceptable.”

Some kind of spending bill must become law before Friday at midnight, otherwise a partial government shutdown would begin. Shown is the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 26, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Democrats released details early Thursday on how much federal disaster aid each state would lose if Republicans drop it from a stopgap spending bill that’s been rejected by their own members as well as President-elect Donald Trump.

The state-by-state breakdown of roughly $100 billion came just hours after Trump and many of his closest allies, including tech billionaire Elon Musk, urged GOP leaders in Congress to walk away from a bipartisan year-end spending package.

That short-term spending bill, or some version of it, must become law before Friday at midnight, otherwise a partial government shutdown would begin. A partial shutdown would halt paychecks to federal employees and U.S. troops just ahead of the holiday season.

The breakdown shows states battered by hurricanes and other natural disasters such as California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia would miss out on more than $2 billion each, though the figures for the larger states go above $10 billion.

Misinformation over pay raise

The stalemate over the short-term spending bill began shortly after congressional leaders released the 1,547-page package on Tuesday evening.

Speaker Mike Johnson defended some of the extraneous measures during a press conference Tuesday before it was publicly released and during a Fox News interview Wednesday morning.

The Louisiana Republican reinforced the need for disaster aid and economic assistance to farmers, though the spending package includes dozens of unrelated items, including a provision that would allow the nationwide sale of 15% ethanol blended gasoline year round.

The bill also dropped a long-standing provision that blocked members of Congress from getting an annual cost of living adjustment salary increase.

There was considerable misinformation Wednesday around how much of a boost in pay lawmakers would stand to receive next Congress, riling up people who didn’t have access to the correct figures.

The incorrect numbers were spread by many online, but received special attention from Musk, who advocated shutting down the government before Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance weighed in later Wednesday.

Lawmakers would receive a maximum 3.8% salary increase, boosting their annual pay from $174,000 to $180,600, according to a report released in September by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Lawmakers haven’t received a COLA increase since January 2009.

Sudden debt limit demand

The full package, which congressional leaders and committees spent weeks negotiating, would have given Congress until March 14 to negotiate a bicameral agreement on the dozen annual government funding bills that were supposed to become law by the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1.

Republicans wanted to hold over the full-year spending bills until they have unified control of government next year.

The package would have given lawmakers until Sept. 30 to work out a deal on the five-year farm bill, which they should have completed work on well over a year ago.

Trump pressed Wednesday for lawmakers to add the debt limit to negotiations, with just about two days left before the shutdown deadline. Working out a bipartisan agreement to raise or suspend the nation’s borrowing authority typically takes months of talks.

Trump said he didn’t want to have to deal with the debt limit debate once his second administration begins on Jan. 20 and would rather have had it on President Joe Biden’s record.

Trump told NBC News on Thursday morning that he wanted Congress to eliminate the debt limit entirely, marking a substantial shift in how Republicans have approached the cap on borrowing.

The GOP typically leverages the debt ceiling debate to push for spending cuts, though not always successfully.

Democratic leaders in Congress maintain they are not going to renegotiate with Republicans, which would prevent any Republican-only bill from becoming law before the deadline. While the GOP controls the House, Democrats right now run the Senate and hold the White House.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said Thursday morning in a floor speech that GOP infighting over the bipartisan bill was risking an unnecessary government shutdown.

“Unfortunately, it seems Republicans are in shambles over in the House,” Schumer said. “But as they try to piece things together, they should remember one thing — the only way to get things done is through bipartisanship.”

Jeffries urges vote on stopgap

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., on didn’t entirely rule out lawmakers from his party voting for a slimmed-down stopgap spending bill, but urged GOP leaders to stick with the version they spent weeks negotiating.

“This reckless Republican-driven shutdown can be avoided if House Republicans will simply do what is right for the American people and stick with the bipartisan agreement that they themselves negotiated,” Jeffries said at a Thursday press conference.

Trump’s insistence that the package address the debt limit in some way was “premature at best,” he said.

Jeffries also said Democrats would not give Johnson extra votes to secure the speaker’s gavel in January, should several of his GOP colleagues refuse to vote for him during a floor vote.

Numerous far-right Republicans have hinted or said directly that they might not support Johnson continuing on as speaker due to their grievances over provisions in the stopgap spending bill.

Republicans will have an extremely narrow House majority next year, meaning Johnson can only lose a few votes before the GOP would begin the third prolonged speaker race in just two years.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy began this session of Congress in January 2023 going through 15 floor votes before he was able to secure the votes needed to become speaker.

Republicans voting to oust him a little over a year ago led to several GOP speaker nominees, who were unable to get the 218 votes needed to become speaker on a floor vote or who opted to not even try.

Republicans nominated House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan and Minnesota’s Tom Emmer before landing on Johnson, who was able to win a floor vote.

Musk for speaker?

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who tried but failed to oust Johnson as speaker in May, has been leading the charge to select someone else, possibly Musk. The Constitution is silent on the question of whether the speaker must be a member of the House.

“The establishment needs to be shattered just like it was yesterday,” Greene wrote on social media. “This could be the way.”

This report has been updated with state-by-state numbers revised by U.S. House Democrats later Thursday morning.

 

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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