The Senate voted 89-4 tonight to advance a bipartisan bill that would fund federal agencies from October 1 through December 11, averting a potential shutdown. As lawmakers look to push off negotiations on full-year spending bills until after November’s midterm elections, the full Senate is poised to pass the stopgap later this week before lawmakers head out for a five-week recess that will stretch into mid-September.
“The American people have faced two – two – record-breaking government shutdowns in the past 10 months. We need to ensure that they do not face a third,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said late last week. “We owe the American people some certainty here.”
The Senate’s continuing resolution, or “CR,” would also temporarily block the Trump administration from finalizing a new rule putting the president’s political appointees in charge of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grants and allow them to terminate funding at any point for any reason. It does not, however, include military funding boosts that the administration wants, including $1 billion for the “Trump-class” battleship.
The action also sets up a clash with the House, which passed its own funding patch before it began its August break. The House bill, written by Republicans and approved largely along party lines, would extend funding until December 4 but does not include the Senate’s adjustments to certain spending levels or the rebuke of the administration’s proposal on grants.
Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican chair of the Appropriations Committee, said the Senate bill is straightforward, with no “poison pills” that would make it unacceptable to Democrats: “It continues current government funding levels until December 11th and includes necessary adjustments for programs like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), vital national security programs, including shipbuilding across multiple vessels, and the Disaster Relief Fund.”
Collins and her Democratic counterpart, Sen. Patty Murray, both praised the provision blocking the administration’s proposed political control over grants.
Collins said in a statement that she is “pleased” that the bill would prevent the new rule from taking effect and noted that she had “advocated for significant changes” to it in a letter she sent last month to the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Murray said that Republicans had rejected killing the new rule outright but that she will continue to fight for that outcome.
“The proposed rule would systematically politicize federal funding and allow Trump officials to cancel grants at any time for any reason,” she said in a statement. “Enabling this rule would only give Trump the greenlight to take even more federal funding hostage.”
Murray also said that the Senate bill addressed some Democratic priorities and includes key differences with the House-passed continuing resolution.
“This bill includes important extensions and language that House Republicans’ CR did not, and it rejects Trump’s frivolous war spending wish list,” she said. “Importantly, we closed the loophole in House Republicans’ CR that would have allowed the Trump administration to transfer funding provided for other programs to Border Patrol, which desperately needs reform, not more money.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democratic appropriator in the House, said in a statement Sunday that the Senate bill “is a clear improvement” over the House GOP’s version, which she called “an incomplete and inadequate first draft of a continuing resolution.” She added that Congress should be working to pass bipartisan full-year funding bills and must “permanently prevent” the proposed OMB rule on grants, which she called a “corrupt, harmful power grab.”
What’s next: The Senate will look to pass the stopgap bill this week. If it does, when House lawmakers return at the end of the month, they will have to decide whether to accept the Senate bill or try to fight for their version.