Not quite at the literal 11th hour– but close to it– the federal government managed to avoid having to shut itself down last Saturday evening over the lack of funds to continue operating. The dreaded government shutdown– something that most of Washington had been expecting for the past two weeks– was prevented at the end as a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government funded through November 17 was adopted in both chambers on bipartisan votes and signed into law at the last minute.
There was plenty of drama building up to the last-minute, temporary, funding extension. After the House Republican leadership finally acknowledged early Saturday that it did not have the votes within its conference to pass a bill with only Republican votes due to the recalcitrance of some of the the hard-right members, the Speaker sought to bring to the floor a CR that was relatively “clean.” It extended government funding at this year’s current levels through November 17, extended the authority of the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Flood Insurance Program, and included $16 billion in emergency disaster relief. It did not include, something that would prove to be an issue in the Senate later that day, additional funding for efforts in Ukraine. The package that was being brought to the floor caught the House Democrats by surprise.
Ultimately, after a review of the package to ensure that there were no “poison pills” for their party in the legislation, all but one House Democrat joined a majority of the House Republicans in approving the measure. Ninety House Republicans voted against the bill.
When the Senate took up the House-passed the bill shortly afterwards, progress was delayed because of the lack of additional funding for Ukraine. After assurances from the Senate leadership that efforts would be made on this front, the hold on the legislation from Michael Bennet (D-CO) was released and the chamber adopted it 88 to 9. It was signed into law by President Biden before the end of the evening.
The extension of government funding through November 17 buys, in theory, additional time for the lawmakers to actually finish additional parts of the annual appropriations process. None of the 12 annual appropriations bills for FY2024 has been signed into law yet.
All of these activities related to the CR has ultimately led to another set of dramatic activities currently playing out in the House this week, which we discuss in the next post.