The Government Shut Down and Reopened While You Were Sleeping

The Senate and the House have passed a bipartisan budget agreement and spending bill to reopen the federal government just hours after a shutdown early Friday morning. The bill passed through the Senate with a 71-28 vote, then, before dawn, passed through the House with 240 votes to 186. The government shut down just after midnight Friday—the second shutdown in three weeks—after Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) held up a vote on the bipartisan deal that would have lifted the impasse. Paul objected to GOP leaders’ decision to block him from offering an amendment to the bill, which includes a sweeping two-year budget deal that fiscal conservatives in both chambers are opposing. The measure faced uncertain passage in the House, where Democrats vowed to vote against it because it did not include legal protections for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children, but it gained sufficient support with 73 Democrats voting yes. President Trump later signed the bill to officially end the shutdown.