The House passed a bill Tuesday to fund the government into December, allowing lawmakers to circumvent a politically fraught battle and potential shutdown just weeks before the midterm elections.
The House voted 370-48 to pass the stopgap bill, also known as a continuing resolution. It previously passed the Senate and will now go to President Donald Trump’s desk to be signed into law, funding the government through Dec. 11, a couple of months beyond the start of the fiscal year in October.
A total of 19 Republicans voted against the stopgap bill amid concerns about some provisions unrelated to funding that were attached by the Senate, including a measure that temporarily blocks the White House from implementing an Office of Management and Budget rule to give political appointees more power over discretionary grants.
The House originally passed a different measure in July that would have funded the government into December without any extraneous provisions. However, it lacked support in the Senate.
Senate appropriators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Patty Murray (D-Washington) instead drafted their own continuing resolution, which passed the Senate in a bipartisan 90-6 vote.
House Republican leadership brought the Senate-passed measure to the floor Tuesday under a “suspension of the rules” — a fast-track process that means the bill was not subject to amendments and required support from a two-thirds majority of the chamber to pass.
Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Andy Harris (R-Maryland) argued that the bill should have first gone through the Rules Committee, allowing members the option to submit amendments.
“The Senate added a whole bunch of stuff,” Roy said. ” All of this could have been handled either by putting it in the rule and allowing some amendments, or just doing a clean CR. They didn’t do that, so I’ve got major problems with that.”
Roy and Harris raised concerns about a measure in the stopgap bill that delays the implementation of a new rule that would classify some hemp products as marijuana. Some Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Ted Budd of North Carolina, tried to have the measure stripped out before it passed the Senate, but that effort failed.
Opponents of delaying the reclassification argued intoxicating hemp products are causing a health crisis for children.
“We have to stop poisoning our children with intoxicating hemp products,” Harris said. “We can’t let it go another 30 days, and I feel strongly.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) told The Washington Post on Tuesday that while he agreed with members who raised concerns about the delays of the OMB rule and hemp reclassification, it was more important to pass the bill to avoid a government shutdown.
The Senate “made some changes, some that we don’t support. But when you weigh the whole thing, it’s much more important for the country to avoid a government shutdown,” Scalise said.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Connecticut), the lead Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, praised the additional measures, including the temporary block on the OMB rule.
The proposed rule change would require political appointees to review grants before they are awarded in an effort to advance the president’s priorities and block projects the administration opposes. Opponents of the rule argued it would take power away from independent peer reviewers and threaten funding a number of crucial programs, including those for scientific research.
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