U.S. House votes with Senate to keep federal government open… for a few more months

The Unit­ed States fed­er­al gov­ern­ment will not be shut­ting down tomor­row, thanks to Con­gress’ approval of a con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion that keeps the nation’s many crit­i­cal pub­lic ser­vices fund­ed through ear­ly Decem­ber of this year.

By a vote of 277 to 151, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed to con­cur with the Sen­ate amend­ment to the House amend­ment to the Sen­ate amend­ment of H.R. 719, which became the vehi­cle for keep­ing the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment open.

Every Demo­c­rat present for the vote vot­ed yes. The Repub­li­cans were split, with nine­ty-one aligned with Speak­er John Boehn­er in sup­port, and one hun­dred and fifty-one Repub­li­cans in opposition.

The roll call from the Pacif­ic North­west was as follows:

Vot­ing Aye: Democ­rats Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Jim McDer­mott, Adam Smith, Den­ny Heck (WA), Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Peter DeFazio, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Kurt Schrad­er (OR); Repub­li­cans Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers (WA), Greg Walden (OR), Mike Simp­son (ID), Don Young (AK), Ryan Zinke (MT)

Vot­ing Nay: Raúl Labrador (ID)

Not Vot­ing: Repub­li­can Dave Reichert (WA)

As we can see, it was a pret­ty lop­sided roll call, with Ida­ho’s Raúl Labrador the only no vote. The rest of our region’s Repub­li­can rep­re­sen­ta­tives aligned them­selves with Boehn­er and his lieu­tenants, includ­ing Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers.

Labrador is part of the House Repub­li­can cau­cus’ tea par­ty wing, and is eas­i­ly the most extreme, mil­i­tant mem­ber of the House from the Pacif­ic Northwest.

Con­gress­woman Suzan Del­Bene, who rep­re­sents NPI’s home con­gres­sion­al dis­trict, said in a state­ment fol­low­ing the vote that Con­gress needs to get out of the very bad habit of cre­at­ing man­u­fac­tured fis­cal crises by fail­ing to bud­get responsibly.

“While I’m glad we avert­ed anoth­er gov­ern­ment shut­down, I’m deeply dis­ap­point­ed that con­gres­sion­al lead­ers set­tled on a res­o­lu­tion that sim­ply sets up anoth­er poten­tial cri­sis in two months,” Del­Bene said.

“The Amer­i­can peo­ple expect Con­gress to come togeth­er and work on smart solu­tions that will spur job growth and build an econ­o­my that works for every­one,” she added. “That means craft­ing a long-term bud­get that makes job-cre­at­ing invest­ments, encour­ages inno­va­tion, expands eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty and respon­si­bly reduces our deficit. Lurch­ing toward anoth­er gov­ern­ment shut­down will only hurt work­ing fam­i­lies, small busi­ness­es and our economy.”

“As a for­mer busi­ness­woman, I under­stand that no busi­ness would ever plan just two months at a time. This con­stant uncer­tain­ty and the new nor­mal of gov­ern­ing from cri­sis-to-cri­sis harms our econ­o­my and dam­ages our credibility.”

Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma is expect­ed to quick­ly sign H.R. 719.

“With today’s bipar­ti­san vote, Con­gress has tak­en a step away from the brink – and the Pres­i­dent will sign the bill into law once he receives it,” said White House Press Sec­re­tary Josh Earnes in a state­ment fol­low­ing the House vote.

“But, the Amer­i­can peo­ple deserve far bet­ter than last-minute, short-term leg­is­lat­ing. That’s why Con­gress should pass a bud­get that revers­es harm­ful spend­ing cuts known as seques­tra­tion to allow for crit­i­cal invest­ments in our mil­i­tary readi­ness, infra­struc­ture, schools, pub­lic health, and R&D [research and devel­op­ment] that keep our com­pa­nies on the cut­ting edge. Con­gress can and should get this work done with­out delay.”

“There is no rea­son that we should deny Amer­i­can fam­i­lies and busi­ness­es the cer­tain­ty and sup­port they need by kick­ing the can down the road again,” he stressed. “At a time when our busi­ness­es have cre­at­ed more than 13 mil­lion new jobs over the past five and a half years, Wash­ing­ton can choose to sup­port our Amer­i­can come­back or to stall its momen­tum. To the Pres­i­dent, the choice is clear.”