Senate passes $1.2 trillion spending bill, averting government shutdown
The Senate approved a $1.2 trillion spending bill in the wee hours of Saturday morning to prevent a brief partial government shutdown, sending the bill to President Biden to sign into law.
The bill, which passed by a 74-24 vote, funds about three-quarters of the federal government for the next six months, while also raising military pay, eliminating U.S. funding for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees and bolstering security at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Passage came after a 12:01 a.m. deadline, meaning some federal funding technically expired, but the White House budget office said it would not declare a shutdown because the vote was imminent, and Biden will sign the bill later Saturday.
The House had passed the measure, the product of an agreement between Biden, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), on Friday morning.
But the vote there succeeded on a jarringly slim margin for Johnson and the House GOP leadership and ignited a rebellion among far-right extremists in the lower chamber, testing the speaker’s tenuous grip on his conference.
That foreshadowed unrest in the Senate later in the day and night. A group of Republican senators demanded amendment votes to the legislation on politically thorny issues, including immigration, Iran sanctions and government spending. But altering the bill in any way would have assured a shutdown; the legislation would have had to be approved again by the House, which had already adjourned for a recess slated to go longer than two weeks.
That kept the Senate in session into early Saturday morning as Schumer and the Republicans haggled over a deal. An agreement emerged just as the deadline arrived, allowing weary lawmakers to finally vote.
“I’m going to be brief, because we want to move quickly on to votes,” Schumer said shortly before the Senate launched into a series of more than a dozen votes that began around midnight. “It’s been a very long and difficult day, but we have just reached an agreement to finish funding the government.”
Even if the funding interruption had lasted into Saturday or Sunday, the effects would probably have been muted: Many federal workers at unfunded agencies would be off for the weekend, anyway.
“I’m opposed to shutdowns, but of the kinds of shutdowns that we could have one that is only happening on the weekend is about the best version it,” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) told The Washington Post. “Where this hurts is in defense.”
Negotiators took so long working out the final details of the package, and the House took so long putting it to a vote after the deal was cinched, that the Senate had scant time — by its slow standards — to pass the legislation before midnight.
Republican Sens. Ted Budd (N.C.), Mike Lee (Utah), Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Rand Paul (Ky.) demanded amendment votes before they would agree to yield time and allow a vote to proceed.
That sparked not just policy disputes in the upper chamber, but also personal ones. Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), the top Republican appropriator, had to return to her home state Saturday morning for her mother’s funeral. Senate leadership attempted to eliminate amendment proposals, or hasten the way they were processed, as a courtesy to her so she could vote before leaving Washington.
The Senate can act fast when it has unanimous consent, so even just the 12 hours the House left the upper chamber to deal with the bill could have been enough — if all 100 members had agreed. They did not, until minutes before the deadline.
“This is way past stupid,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who is close with Collins and a key interlocutor with Schumer. “This is into mean.”
The bill represented the end of a months-long saga to fund the federal government for fiscal year 2024, which began on Oct. 1, 2023. Congress passed several temporary spending extensions last fall and earlier this year before finally approving full-year spending for about a quarter of the government two weeks ago. Each spending bill was supported by more Democrats than Republicans in the House.
Wrapping the last three-quarters up proved the most difficult part. Republicans at the negotiating table with White House officials successfully turned provisions to fund the Department of Homeland Security into a broader fight about immigration policy.
The legislation would increase funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to support about 42,000 beds in detention facilities, and it would fund 22,000 Border Patrol agents. It would also cut U.S. contributions by 20 percent to nongovernmental organizations that provide services for new arrivals to the country. Lawmakers who want to restrict immigration argue that the nonprofit groups incentivize illegal crossings.
Republicans were also able to prohibit federal funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) for the next 12 months. Israel has accused some of the agency’s employees of involvement in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people and saw hundreds more taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip by the militant group Hamas. A U.S. intelligence assessment has reportedly verified some of Israel’s claims about UNRWA.
The bill also includes a 6 percent cut to foreign aid programs, already a minuscule slice of federal spending, and a Republican change to the law that prohibits nonofficial U.S. flags from flying atop American embassies. GOP lawmakers hope to use that provision, a slightly narrower version of which had previously been in place, to prevent Biden-nominated officials from displaying Pride flags at official locations at U.S. diplomatic outposts.
Democrats eliminated other policy provisions to limit abortion access and restrict the rights of LGBTQ Americans.
Certain Democratic priorities also saw significant funding boosts, including $1 billion more for the early-education program Head Start and $1 billion for climate resilience funding at the Defense Department. The legislation also provides an additional 12,000 special immigrant visas for Afghans who assisted the U.S. military and are attempting to escape the Taliban government.
Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to oust Speaker Mike Johnson over his pushing through of a $1.2 trillion bipartisan spending bill that angered far-right lawmakers.
“Today I filed a motion to vacate after Speaker Johnson has betrayed our conference and broken our rules,” Greene said in regards to the package that was passed to avoid a government shutdown. According to The Independent's Eric Garcia, the move worked out great for Greene since she "has shown little desire to legislate but an eagerness for attention."
"Greene and other hardline conservatives hate that, despite the fact Republicans control one half of one branch of the government, they did not get everything they want and get President Joe Biden to sign it. It’s an unrealistic desire, but the far-right side of the Republican Party doesn’t seem to care," Garcia writes.
GOP members of the upper chamber were also accused of sowing chaos on Friday, as the midnight shutdown deadline loomed.
Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said on social media, "Well, it looks like we're headed for a shutdown at the hands of Senate Republican gremlins who (1) know that amendments can't pass because there's no House to send an amended bill back to (they adjourned) and (2) want amendments anyway."
"And (3) can't decide amongst themselves what won't-pass amendments they want," Whitehouse added. "I sure hope I'm wrong. But the Republican Senate caucus is a rudderless ship right now, so the gremlins are running the show."
As things stand, Greene's move likely won't result in Johnson's ouster. But in the wake of Greene's stunt, Wisconsin GOP Rep. Mike Gallagher joined Colorado GOP Rep. Ken Buck in announcing that he'll be resigning from Congress, leaving Republicans with only a one-seat majority and making Johnson's job more complicated.
The Washington Post noted Friday that "Buck and Gallagher are the sixth and seventh members of the House who are quitting midterm simply to leave for the private sector, a trend we dubbed 'the Great Resignation' last weekend. It's also the highest number of lawmakers quitting public service altogether in at least 40 years."
Responding to Gallager's announcement on social media, HuffPost's Jennifer Bendery said that "House Republicans are imploding in plain sight."
In yet another disruption to the chamber's GOP leadership, Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas)—who announced last year that she wouldn't seek reelection—wrote in a Friday letter to Johnson that she plans to step down as chair of the House Appropriations Committee.
"Gallagher’s move reveals just how miserable being in the House is for Republicans who want to get things done," Garcia writes. "Just two days before, the House Oversight Committee held another, pointless impeachment inquiry hearing into the president and Hunter Biden that went nowhere."
