Senate Approves Stopgap Spending Extension, Averting Shutdown

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday night voted in favor of a “laddered” proposal from the House to extend funding for some federal departments and agencies through March 8 and the rest through March 22.

The 77-13 vote, which came just hours after the Republican-led House sent the measure to the chamber, effectively postponed the threat of a partial government shutdown by a week.

The measure is now headed to President Joe Biden’s desk so it can be signed into law.

“I am happy to inform the American people that there will be no government shutdown on Friday.,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote.

“When we pass this bill, we will have, thank God, avoided a shutdown with all its harmful effects on the American people,” he said.

Schumer thanked his colleagues for working together in a bipartisan fashion to pass the bill and urged them to “finish the job of funding the government so we don’t have to do this again.”

“As I’ve said repeatedly to [House Speaker Mike Johnson], the only way to get things done in divided government is bipartisanship. I’m glad the speaker heard our plea and worked with us to avert a shutdown,” he said.

Schumer said the plan now is to bring the first six funding bills — measures that should have been passed ahead of the start of the 2024 fiscal year on Oct. 1 — to the floor this week and get them to the president’s desk before March 8.

“The vote tonight is a strong indication that we can work in a bipartisan way to get those bills passed, and we hope to finish funding all of the government by March 22,” the majority leader said. “That is the commitment the speaker made with us yesterday and we are counting on him to follow through.”

President Biden also weighed in, calling the bipartisan agreement to avoid a government shutdown “good news for the American people.”

At the same time, however, he said he wanted to be clear “this is a short-term fix — not a long-term solution.”

“In the days ahead, Congress must do its job and pass full-year funding bills that deliver for the American people. And House Republicans must act on the bipartisan National Security Supplemental, which already passed the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support and would pass the House if it was brought to a vote,” Biden said.

Referring to his meeting with congressional leaders earlier this week, the president said everyone who gathered in the Oval Office agreed on the importance of supporting Ukraine in its efforts to defend against Russian attacks.

But the supplement would do far more than that, Biden said.

“This bill will help ensure that Israel can defend itself against Hamas and other threats. And it will provide critical humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people and those impacted by conflicts around the world,” he said, adding, “Innocent lives are on the line.”

“It is time for House Republicans to put our national security first and move with urgency to get this bipartisan bill to my desk,” the president concluded.

If Schumer’s optimism is rewarded, Congress will approve about $1.6 trillion in spending for the year, about the same as it approved for fiscal year 2023.

To date, finding common ground has been arduous. The hard right flank of the Republican conference, many of them members of the House Freedom Caucus, have been pressing for deeper cuts for non-defense programs than are in the current plan.

They’ve also sought to attach a number of policy changes that Democrats consider anathema.

Senate action on the stopgap spending measure came just hours after the House approved the short-term spending extension by a 320-99 vote.

Though the vote was overwhelmingly bipartisan and easily surpassed the two-thirds majority needed for passage, it also revealed a stark divide in the Republican ranks.

When the votes were tallied, 113 members of the GOP House conference had voted to support the bill and 97 had voted against it.

Last week, Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., made his position plain when he told The Well News, “We have got to grow a spine and not settle. We’re spending this country into oblivion. And I’m just not going to go along with that. If it means shutting the government down, shut it down.”

On Thursday, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., struck a similar theme, telling reporters on Capitol Hill “Last I checked, the Republicans actually have a majority in the House of Representatives, but you wouldn’t know it if you looked at our checkbook.

“We are all too willing to continue the policy choices of Joe Biden and the spending levels of Nancy Pelosi.”

Republicans who voted in favor of the bill argued shutting down the government at this time would harm their constituents and the broader American public.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., sought to bridge the divide on Thursday by pointing out that if one sets aside the spending planned for the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments, the vast majority of federal agencies will see spending cuts in the appropriations bills that will be considered next week.

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