WASHINGTON, Sept. 3 — The House on Tuesday passed a short-term funding measure to keep the federal government operating into early December, clearing a hurdle that lawmakers hoped would spare the nation another shutdown during the campaign season. The bill cleared the chamber by a vote of 370-48 after the Senate had already overwhelmingly approved it. The measure now heads to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature.
The fiscal year ends at the end of September, and with voters heading to the polls, neither party showed appetite for repeating the funding fights of the past year. That history loomed large.
A record 43-day shutdown last fall stemmed from a dispute over renewing an expiring tax credit that lowers the cost of health coverage purchased through Affordable Care Act marketplaces. That was followed by a 76-day shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, which ended only after lawmakers agreed to fund much of the department while leaving its immigration enforcement operations unresolved. House Speaker Mike Johnson framed Tuesday’s vote in stark terms before it happened.
“We’re going to avoid the threat of another Democratic shutdown,” he told reporters. After the vote, Johnson said the House delivered, despite skepticism that the Republican majority could overcome its internal divisions.
“We’re continuing to do the grown-up thing, get the job done,” he said. Rep. Tom Cole, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, emphasized the practical stakes. “It gives the nation and our constituents certainty, certainty that the government will remain open, certainty that our service members will be paid,” he said.
Democrats largely fell in line, though not without reservations. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the lead Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, urged her colleagues to support the measure during a closed-door meeting Tuesday morning. She argued the bill was much improved from the version the House passed earlier this summer on a mostly party-line basis.
Key changes came from the Senate’s version of the bill. It prevents the Department of Homeland Security from transferring funds to the Border Patrol, and it delays a proposed rule that would grant political appointees in the Trump administration more authority to stop federal grants for programs they view as misaligned with the president’s agenda.
Democrats fear that regulation would steer money away from Democratic-led states. DeLauro called the delay an important first step but insisted more must be done to block the policy entirely. “Whether a community receives disaster relief should not depend on who they voted for in the last election,” she said.
The measure funds federal agencies generally at current levels through Dec. 11, buying time for a full-year agreement. That task remains formidable: Republicans are seeking hundreds of billions of dollars in additional military spending while cutting most non-defense programs, a proposal Democrats reject outright, insisting instead on a bipartisan approach that treats domestic programs with parity.
The calendar, at least, offers some breathing room — but the underlying divisions that produced last year’s record shutdowns remain unresolved.
