Bipartisan deal looks to punt shutdown threat into December

Congressional leaders have reached a deal to keep federal agencies funded through mid-December, announcing plans to vote this week on a bill to avert a shutdown that would otherwise take place next week. 

The agreement, announced by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Sunday, comes after House Republicans for weeks suggested they would not back a short-term funding measure unless congressional Democrats and the White House agreed to certain partisan demands. The continuing resolution, which would keep agencies funded through Dec. 20, will likely receive bipartisan support but can still fall victim to individual lawmakers disrupting it from reaching President Biden’s desk on an expedited timeline.

Johnson agreeing to a stopgap CR without added provisions comes over the objections of former President Trump, who instructed Republicans to reject any funding deal if it did not include legislative provisions to address his unsubstantiated claims of widespread voting from non-citizens. The House voted last week on a six-month CR that included the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, but more than a dozen Republicans joined Democrats in defeating it. 

“Since we fell a bit short of the goal line, an alternative plan is now required,” Johnson said, adding the CR would be “clean” and prevent the Democratic-controlled Senate from forcing the House to on a stopgap that included billions of dollars in new provisions. “Our legislation will be a very narrow, bare-bones CR including only the extensions that are absolutely necessary.” 

Johnson explained that, as many House and Senate Republicans have warned in recent weeks, the agreement was the only “prudent path forward” as it would be an “act of political malpractice” to allow a shutdown to occur so close to a presidential election. 

Last week, Trump posted on Truth Social that Republicans “should not agree to a continuing resolution in any way, shape, or form” if it did not include the SAVE Act. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the agreement came together after four days of bipartisan, bicameral negotiations. 

“While I am pleased bipartisan negotiations quickly led to a government funding agreement free of cuts and poison pills, this same agreement could have been done two weeks ago,” Schumer said. “Instead, Speaker Johnson chose to follow the MAGA way and wasted precious time.”

Now, Schumer added, Congress must act quickly to wrap up its work on the CR this week. 

“The key to finishing our work this week will be bipartisan cooperation, in both chambers,” he said. 

While the bill would largely continue agency funding at their fiscal 2024 levels, it would include some “anomalies,” including $231 million to the U.S. Secret Service for its protective mission. The agency has faced additional scrutiny and pressure to ramp up its efforts after two failed assassination attempts on Trump in recent months. The measure also prevents agencies from furloughing or terminating employees due to budget shortfalls, includes additional funds for the Office of Personnel Management to set up a new health benefits program for the U.S. Postal Service and adds spending for transition activities at the White House, General Services Administration and the National Archives and Records Administration. 

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, said the CR represented a bipartisan compromise and Congress should work quickly to avoid a “needless and disastrous government shutdown.” 

If Congress is able to get the bill to Biden’s desk before Oct. 1, it will then face a new deadline just before the holidays. Focus will turn to full-year funding measures after the election, though the House and Senate remain deeply divided on a path forward. The House has passed six of the 12 required annual spending bills, though it has done so in party-line votes and at spending levels below what Republicans and the White House previously agreed to as part of a two-year budget deal. The Senate has passed 11 of its 12 bills using higher funding totals in overwhelmingly bipartisan votes at the committee level, though none have been approved on the floor. 

“There are so many urgent national priorities that still must be addressed in our full-year funding bills,” Murray said. “I will be working closely with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to ensure we get the job done before the end of the year.”