The Senate passed a 45-day spending package just hours before the federal government was set to shut down Saturday night, averting calamity and giving lawmakers six weeks to negotiate a longer-term spending agreement.
The House had passed the continuing resolution earlier in the day, sending it to the Senate, where lawmakers voted 88-9 to deliver the bill to President Biden’s desk.
The passage marks the conclusion of a particularly disastrous week for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who was forced Friday to accept Democrats’ help after far-right members of his party crushed his attempts to pass a Republican version of the spending package, which would have seen a 30 percent reduction in funding for hundreds of government programs. Instead, the bipartisan spending package contains no cuts to government programs, but it also excludes additional funding for Ukraine which is expected to be brought up in a separate vote next week.
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed that he and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell would work to secure further assistance to Ukraine.
“Democrats and Republicans have come to an agreement and the government will remain open. We will have avoided a shutdown. … Leader McConnell and I have agreed to continue fighting for more economic and security aid for Ukraine. We support Ukraine's efforts to defend its sovereignty against Putin's aggression,” Schumer said ahead of the vote.
As pressure built earlier Saturday over the looming shutdown, McCarthy had turned to Democrats to pass the 45-day funding bill through the House. The proposal required support from two-thirds of lawmakers, a rare vote of unity in the typically dysfunctional and splintered House chamber. The bill ultimately passed 335-91.
If historical precedent is any indication, threats of a government shutdown are likely to crop up again in the near future.
Prior to the House vote, McCarthy—who has been battling hard-liners within his own party—tried to cast himself as a unifier.
“We’re going to do our job,” he said after a party meeting in the morning. “We’re going to be adults in the room. And we’re going to keep government open.”
Originally, a vote was expected to take place at about 11:45 a.m., though some Democrats were not comfortable immediately voting on the bill without first reviewing it in depth.
“It was just dropped upon us at the 11th hour, and our members are of the view that nothing that Republicans have said this year is trustworthy. Nothing,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said.
House Minority Whip Katherine M. Clark said Democrats wanted at least 90 minutes to review the bill, saying they would not support it until they could review all 71 pages. “We have serious trust issues,” Clark said in her floor speech.
McCarthy attempted to put responsibility for any potential shutdown on Democrats.
“It will only fail if Democrats vote against it,” he said.
McCarthy vowed to advance the short-term proposal even if it angered his rivals—like embattled Rep. Matt Gaetz—and ended up costing him his job.
“If I have to risk my job for standing up for American public, I will do that,” he said.
President Biden assailed Republicans in a tweet on Saturday morning, writing, “There are those in Congress right now who are sowing so much division, they’re willing to shut down the government tonight. It’s unacceptable.”
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