Congress Passes Yet Another Stopgap Spending Bill
In a 314 to 108 vote on January 18, 2024, the House of Representatives passed a stopgap spending bill sending it to President Biden’s desk and averting a government shutdown. This came just a few hours after the Democrat-controlled Senate approved the same measure. A two-thirds majority was necessary to pass the legislation and, with 422 House Members voting, they successfully surpassed the 282-vote threshold.
Last weekend, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced they had struck a funding agreement on topline spending numbers. However, while the stopgap passed just in time, Johnson only secured 107 "yea" votes from his party. Even Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the House Republican Conference Chair, voted in opposition. This foreshadows more parliamentary obstacles as Congress continues its effort to fully fund the government for FY24.
The latest continuing resolution (CR) pushes the funding deadline for the departments of Agriculture, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Energy and the Food and Drug Administration from January 19 to March 1. It also pushes the deadline for the remaining government agencies, including the departments of Defense, Labor, and Education, from February 2 to March 8.
The agreement includes $1.59 trillion for FY24, with $886 billion for defense spending and $704 billion in non-defense spending. Schumer and Johnson also agreed to a $69 billion side deal in adjustments that will go toward non-defense domestic spending. A more in-depth summary of the bill, including which expiring health care provisions are extended, can be found here.
The continuing resolution will be the third funding measure Congress has cleared since the current fiscal year kicked off on October 1. Each of those stopgaps has riled drama among House Republicans, eight of whom voted with Democrats to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy after he agreed to pass the first patch in late September.
Speaker Johnson then put his own spin on the funding punt just before Thanksgiving, proposing the “laddered” continuing resolution that set two different shutdown deadlines. Some Republican hard-liners are angered that Johnson walked back a promise he made last November not to allow more temporary extensions of funding.
Despite previous upheavals, lawmakers sailed through the passage process this week pretty quickly with two motivating factors in mind—avoiding the travel complications of a snowstorm forecast to hit Washington, D.C. on Friday and heading off a partial government shutdown set to hit the next day, January 19, at 11:59pm.