House Passes Stopgap Funding Bill, Senate Plans Vote Saturday Night

WASHINGTON — After multiple failed attempts, the House on Saturday approved a “clean” stopgap funding bill in a last-ditch bid to avert a government shutdown, sending the measure to the Senate with just hours to spare.

In the end, after days of wrangling within the House Republican conference and with a midnight deadline looming, the funding bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.

The vote was 335-91, with 90 Republicans and one Democrat voting no.

The measure passed by the House would keep the government funded at current spending levels for 45 days, and includes $16 billion for domestic disaster relief.

However, the bill does not include aid for Ukraine, nor does it include the border policy changes House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., had added to an earlier iteration of the continuing resolution only yesterday.

The resolution introduced Saturday was markedly different from the plan pushed for by hardline conservative Republicans in the House, and it is unclear now whether they will move to vacate the seat and try to end the McCarthy speakership.

In the closing moments of the afternoon’s session, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., the most outspoken member on the subject of removing McCarthy, tried in vain to be recognized. Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla., gaveled the chamber into adjournment before that occurred.

Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., said afterwards that the speaker had “put a CR on the floor that got 209 Democrat votes, since it kept in place the Biden-Pelosi-Schumer policies that are destroying the country and the spending levels that are bankrupting us. 

“Sadly, it also got 126 Republican votes. Uni-Party rule,” he added.

On the other side of the aisle, Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H., chair of the New Democrat Coalition, released a statement rebuking McCarthy and the hardline faction of the House Republican conference for refusing “to work in good faith with Democrats to fully fund the government, despite our continued calls to find a bipartisan path forward.”

“Let’s be clear: this isn’t a perfect deal or a permanent solution,” she said on the resolution passed Saturday, “but New Dems are dedicated to avoiding a shutdown and protecting our economy.

“While we support this measure to end this immediate crisis, we continue our calls for additional funding to support Ukraine in their fight for democracy and will work tirelessly to ensure they have the assistance required to win this war,” Kuster said.

“Thank you to the people who didn’t believe in me. To those who thought they were putting water on my fire, you put gas on it.”

Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., also released a statement in which she said, “We should never have come this close to a government shutdown.

“For days, thousands of Virginians I represent feared a situation where they would be forced to work without pay, become furloughed, or struggle to make ends meet. And for months, Virginia’s businesses were sounding the alarm about the devastating effects of shutdowns on Virginia’s economy,” she said.

“Many of my colleagues in the House GOP refused to listen to these voices. They were determined to bring down the very functioning of America’s government for the sake of raising money, grabbing headlines, and getting the attention they so desperately crave,” she continued. “Speaker McCarthy rewarded this behavior for far too long — even though a bipartisan solution was clearly on the table to keep America’s government open.

“We need to move away — sharply — from the idea that being an elected official means a blank checkbook to grandstand. As a country, we need to get back to the basics of governing — recognizing our shared challenges, hammering out differences, and finding a responsible compromise that averts disaster,” Spanberger added.

The focus on Capitol Hill has now switched to the Senate, where Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., initially tried to convince his conference to endorse the Senate continuing resolution, which retained just over $6 billion in aid for Ukraine, and about $6 billion for disaster relief.

When a majority of Republicans opposed his plan, he announced Senate Republicans would not allow the upper chamber’s bipartisan continuing resolution to advance, and that they would instead defer to the House plan.

On a side note, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., pulled a fire alarm in the Cannon Office building Saturday morning, just as his party was trying to delay a vote on the GOP spending bill.

A Bowman spokesperson later took to social media to address the incident, describing it as inadvertent.

“Rep. Bowman did not realize he would trigger a building alarm as he was rushing to make an urgent vote. The congressman regrets any confusion,” said Emma Simon, Bowman’s digital director, in a statement posted to X.

Speaker McCarthy said he planned to speak to House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., about the incident, but added he also believes it should be taken up by the House Ethics Committee.

In the meantime, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y. has already drafted a resolution calling for Bowman’s expulsion from the House.