The Republican-controlled House has passed another stopgap bill to keep the government chugging along until late November.
The final tally Friday morning was 217-212, with just one Democrat—Maine Representative Jared Golden—voting alongside all but two Republicans to pass it. Conservative Representatives Tim Burchett and Victoria Spartz sided with the rest of the Democrats in voting against the continuing resolution.
The measure now advances to the Senate, where Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has already promised to defeat it. In its stead, Democratic leadership in the upper chamber have proposed a separate funding plan—though that is also expected to be rejected on the Senate floor late Friday.
The House bill extends the current level of federal funding without making any changes to federal policy. It will keep the government up and running until November 21, which will likely cause another kerfuffle on the eve of Congress’s Thanksgiving recess.
The Democratic Senate bill, meanwhile, would initiate a series of policy changes, including extending Obamacare subsidies and nixing the “big, beautiful” bill’s Medicaid cuts. That plan would fund the government through October 31.
House Speaker Mike Johnson addressed Schumer shortly after the vote, informing the New York politico that the ball was now in his court.
“I hope he does the right thing,” Johnson told reporters. “I hope he does not choose to shut the government down and inflict pain, unnecessarily, on the American people. I hope that they will vote on this clean, short-term CR, so that we can continue the work to get our appropriations done.”
If Schumer’s recent actions are anything to go by, the senator is unlikely to force his caucus into a shutdown showdown. Months ago, when the party was unified in its opposition to Trump’s landmark legislation, Schumer argued that a government shutdown would have “consequences for America that are much, much worse” than the president’s $880 billion cut to social programs.
A shutdown would give the Trump administration “carte blanche to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now,” Schumer said at the time. “Under a shutdown, the Trump administration would have full authority to deem whole agencies programs and personnel nonessential, furloughing staff with no promise they would ever be rehired.”
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