A majority of House Republicans and Democrats joined forces Tuesday to clear a Senate-passed stopgap appropriations bill ensuring the government will remain open through Dec. 11, punting a potential shutdown fight until after the midterm elections.
The stopgap temporarily extends current spending levels and policies, with some adjustments for priority programs, such as those focused on national defense, wildfire prevention and food assistance. The White House has said President Trump will sign the bill.
Congress is far from an agreement on full-year fiscal 2027 appropriations bills, but the stopgap provides lawmakers an additional 10 weeks of negotiating time.
“We bought the time that we need to get through the election cycle and hopefully the time that we need to get to serious bargaining on the other side of it,” said House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, Oklahoma Republican.
The 370-48 vote on the stopgap, also called a continuing resolution or CR, came four weeks ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government into the next fiscal year, which frustrated some lawmakers in both parties who wanted to make use of that time.
“I will be voting yes on the CR even though doing CRs is a stupid way to run government,” said Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Ted Lieu of California. “We have a whole ’nother month left, and Republicans who control the House, the Senate and the White House are waving the white flag of surrender and basically saying we don’t know how to govern.”
Conservatives opposed some provisions in the CR and wanted a chance to amend it. GOP leaders decided instead to proceed without changes and rely on Democratic votes, using a fast-track process known as suspension of the rules that requires a two-thirds majority vote for passage.
“They don’t want my vote. They wanted to get Democratic votes,” Texas GOP Rep. Keith Self said. “I don’t think major funding bills should be under suspension, just as a matter of principle.”
Mr. Cole said although the CR contains provisions that House Republicans disagree with, they decided not to pick a fight over the temporary bill to ease the start of bipartisan, bicameral negotiations over full-year appropriations bills.
“I wish we could get everybody to work faster and sooner … but there will be no government shutdown,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said.
The Louisiana Republican said he hopes Democrats are done playing political games after blocking government funding for roughly one-third of the current fiscal year.
Fiscal 2026 started with a record-breaking 43-day, government-wide shutdown last fall as Senate Democrats filibustered a stopgap spending bill over an unrelated health care policy dispute.
Congress then passed 11 of the 12 annual appropriations bills, but Democrats filibustered the Department of Homeland Security funding measure in opposition to President Trump’s deportation force. DHS was shut down for 76 days, and Republicans ultimately had to separately fund immigration enforcement agencies through the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process.
Republicans said the stopgap is designed to avoid a repeat of those crises.
“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, so we don’t have the chaos that Democrats gave us last year with lines at every single airport, with shutdowns where our troops’ pay was in question, where you had so much uncertainty that we don’t need,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Louisiana Republican.
House Republicans passed their own stopgap in July, but the Senate amended that bill with changes designed to win bipartisan support needed to overcome a filibuster.
The Senate removed a provision in the House bill that would have allowed DHS to transfer more funding to the U.S. Border Patrol, which had angered Democrats since the agency already has advanced funding from the reconciliation measure.
The bipartisan agreement also includes a provision temporarily blocking the White House Office of Management and Budget from finalizing a rule that would give political appointees more authority over how to spend grant funding.
“This is an important first step, but more must be done to permanently block this policy before it is allowed to take effect,” Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democratic appropriator, said, adding that the proposed OMB rule would take away the power of the purse from Congress and give it to President Trump.
Conservatives’ opposition to the CR stemmed in part from it blocking OMB from finalizing the grantmaking rule before Dec. 11. Some also opposed a provision that delays implementation of a new law banning intoxicating hemp products for a month.
“The House and Senate disagree on the continuing resolution,” said House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, Maryland Republican. “We should go to conference or we should have a vote on the Senate’s ridiculous provisions concerning poisoning our children for a month with intoxicating hemp products and allowing George Soros-linked NGOs to get grants. It’s ridiculous.”
Conservatives were particularly upset because GOP leaders did not offer them an opportunity to amend the bill. They wanted votes to block funding from going to Planned Parenthood, sanctuary cities that do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement and flock cameras that can be used to surveil Americans.
“This was uni-party doing uni-party things,” Texas GOP Chip Roy said. “They’re going to continue to fund the swamp.”
• George Caldwell contributed to this report.
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