House votes 370-48 to fund federal government through Dec. 11, sending bill to Trump's desk and pushing spending fight past midterms
 |
| The House passed a short-term funding measure Tuesday, sending it to the president's desk and avoiding a shutdown before the November midterms. |
The House passed a short-term government funding measure Tuesday by a wide bipartisan margin, ending the immediate threat of a shutdown and pushing the next spending deadline past the November midterm elections.
The continuing resolution cleared the chamber in a 370-48 vote after Republican leaders fast-tracked it, a move that required two-thirds support for passage. The bill now heads to the president's desk for a signature.
The legislation keeps federal agencies operating at current funding levels through Dec. 11. That date sits more than a month after voters go to the polls on Nov. 3 to decide control of both the House and Senate for the next two years.
Without action, federal funding would have lapsed after Sept. 30, triggering a shutdown. The House had been on a lengthy summer break and only returned to Washington on Monday. The Senate approved its version of the funding bill in early August, voting 90-6 before leaving for its own five-week recess.
A stopgap that buys time — but not much
Congress has made little progress on the dozen annual appropriations bills that fund the federal government. The House Appropriations Committee has advanced all 12 measures since April, but only three have passed the full House. In the Senate, none have made it out of committee.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, framed the stopgap as a minimum requirement.
"We want to get a longer-term deal, but at a minimum, let's ensure that we can continue to see government properly funded and functioning," Scalise said Tuesday.
Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, was blunt about what the extension does and does not solve. He blamed Senate Democrats for the stalled process, saying the upper chamber had not passed a single spending bill.
"The Senate has wasted the entire year and a half. They have not passed a single bill," Cole said. "There's no excuse for not having a single one done."
Cole predicted that December will bring either a yearlong stopgap measure or a shutdown.
"We're going to be in a crunch time," he said.
What the bill contains
The continuing resolution maintains funding at fiscal year 2026 levels for the 12 major appropriations divisions, with a series of targeted allocations and program-specific provisions attached.
One provision delays until Dec. 11 the implementation of an Office of Management and Budget rule that would overhaul Uniform Guidance, the framework governing how federal grants are administered. The delay addresses concerns from counties and local governments about how the rule would affect their ability to manage federal funds.
The bill also includes language intended to close what Democrats described as a loophole in an earlier House version that they said would have allowed the Trump administration to transfer funds to Border Patrol. It additionally contains a temporary prohibition on political appointees canceling federal grants.
Among other items, the measure:
- Extends the National Flood Insurance Program and the Livestock Mandatory Reporting program through Dec. 11
- Continues Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding at current levels and maintains participation in the WIC program
- Authorizes the Department of Housing and Urban Development to use unobligated funds to prevent shortfalls in Housing Choice Voucher renewals
- Allows for continued spending on wildfire management, atomic energy environmental cleanup and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's weather satellite launch schedule
- Allocates funding to the Indian Health Service for staffing and operating costs at recently opened or renovated facilities
- Prevents cost-of-living adjustments for members of Congress
Two competing versions, one deadline
The House passed its own continuing resolution in July, a measure that would have funded the government only through Dec. 4 and did not include the delay to the OMB rule or several other Senate provisions. It drew little Democratic support, with Democrats pushing for restrictions on Border Patrol funding.
The Senate version that ultimately prevailed addressed several of those concerns. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the House bill had "several major issues" that the Senate's version resolved.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, urged her colleagues to back the stopgap during a closed-door caucus meeting Tuesday morning, according to Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, who chairs the House Democratic Caucus.
"That's a big statement from the ranking member," Aguilar said.
Ahead of the Senate vote in August, Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the measure would provide time to negotiate a broader budget agreement.
"Today's CR gives us the breathing room necessary to work out a budget that helps make life more affordable to working families and reins in Trump's rampant chaos, his rampant corruption," Schumer said.
Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, called the resolution "a major step toward averting a damaging shutdown that only harms vital programs and federal workers," noting it makes no major changes to funding levels.
Recent shutdown history hangs over the talks
The stopgap arrives after a turbulent stretch of funding fights. Democrats triggered a government shutdown last year when they refused to approve funding bills without an agreement to extend subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans. That standoff produced the longest funding lapse in U.S. history, ending after 43 days without a deal to keep the cost offsets in place.
Some agencies shut down again briefly earlier this year after Democrats blocked a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security in protest of the killings of two U.S. citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis during an immigration enforcement operation. The parties eventually reached a bipartisan agreement to fund the department's operations excluding the agencies involved in the administration's mass deportation push. Republicans then passed a party-line bill funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection for the duration of Trump's presidency, without reforms to immigration enforcement.
With the current bill headed to the president's desk, Congress is scheduled to be out of session for nearly all of October so members can campaign in their home districts. That leaves a narrow window in December to either pass full-year spending legislation or agree on another extension before the new Dec. 11 deadline arrives.
 |
| House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said the stopgap ensures the government can continue operating while a longer-term deal is negotiated. |
For now, the immediate risk of a funding lapse is off the table — and so is any resolution to the broader spending debate, which now waits until after voters have their say.