U.S. House passes another stopgap spending bill to avert shutdown, thanks to Democrats

The Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives today vot­ed to keep the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment open for sev­er­al more months after new Speak­er Mike John­son orches­trat­ed a vote on a stop­gap spend­ing bill not weighed down with an ultra MAGA wish­list of pol­i­cy rid­ers that the Sen­ate and Pres­i­dent Biden would oppose.

Though they were pre­vi­ous­ly not enthu­si­as­tic about John­son’s plan to avert a shut­down, Democ­rats pro­vid­ed most of the votes for the leg­is­la­tion, with the Repub­li­can cau­cus sig­nif­i­cant­ly split, just as it was back in Sep­tem­ber when ex-Speak­er Kevin McCarthy made a sim­i­lar move at the eleventh hour in order to avert a shut­down that would be polit­i­cal­ly cost­ly to Republicans.

The House vote on H.R. 6363, the Fur­ther Con­tin­u­ing Appro­pri­a­tions and Oth­er Exten­sions Act, 2024, was 336 to 95, with 3 not vot­ing.

127 Repub­li­cans vot­ed yea along with 209 Democrats.

93 Repub­li­cans vot­ed nay along with two Democ­rats. The Democ­rats vot­ing nay were Jake Auch­in­closs of Mass­a­chu­setts and Mike Quigley of Illinois.

Democ­rats Nan­cy Pelosi and Kevin Mullin of Cal­i­for­nia missed the vote, as did Repub­li­can Mike Ezell of Mississippi.

The roll call from the Pacif­ic North­west was as follows:

Vot­ing Yea to keep the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment open: Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Marie Glue­senkamp Perez, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Mar­i­lyn Strick­land (WA), Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Val Hoyle, and Andrea Sali­nas (OR), Mary Pel­to­la (AK); Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers and Dan New­house (WA), Cliff Bentz and Lori Chavez-DeRe­mer (OR), Mike Simp­son (ID)

Vot­ing Nay to shut down the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment: Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher (ID), Matt Rosendale and Ryan Zinke (MT)

Of the PNW del­e­ga­tion, only the three most ultra MAGA Repub­li­cans from Mon­tana and Ida­ho vot­ed to shut down the fed­er­al government.

The bil­l’s offi­cial sum­ma­ry, pro­vid­ed by the non­par­ti­san Con­gres­sion­al Research Ser­vice, known as CRS for short, is as follows:

This bill pro­vides con­tin­u­ing FY2024 appro­pri­a­tions for fed­er­al agen­cies and extends sev­er­al expir­ing pro­grams and authorities.

It is known as a con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion (CR) and pre­vents a gov­ern­ment shut­down that would oth­er­wise occur if the FY2024 appro­pri­a­tions bills have not been enact­ed when the exist­ing CR expires on Novem­ber 17, 2023.

The CR gen­er­al­ly funds most pro­grams and activ­i­ties at the FY 2023 lev­els with sev­er­al excep­tions that pro­vide fund­ing flex­i­bil­i­ty and addi­tion­al appro­pri­a­tions for var­i­ous programs.

The CR pro­vides fund­ing through Jan­u­ary 19, 2024, for agen­cies and pro­grams that were fund­ed in the fol­low­ing four FY 2023 appro­pri­a­tions acts:

• the Agri­cul­ture, Rur­al Devel­op­ment, Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion, and Relat­ed Agen­cies Appro­pri­a­tions Act, 2023;
• the Ener­gy and Water Devel­op­ment and Relat­ed Agen­cies Appro­pri­a­tions Act, 2023;
• the Mil­i­tary Con­struc­tion, Vet­er­ans Affairs, and Relat­ed Agen­cies Appro­pri­a­tions Act, 2023; and
• the Trans­porta­tion, Hous­ing and Urban Devel­op­ment, and Relat­ed Agen­cies Appro­pri­a­tions Act, 2023.

For most oth­er fed­er­al agen­cies and pro­grams, the CR pro­vides fund­ing through Feb­ru­ary 2, 2024.

The CR also extends sev­er­al pro­grams and author­i­ties, including

• pro­grams autho­rized by the Agri­cul­ture Improve­ment Act of 2018 (com­mon­ly known as the 2018 farm bill),
• sev­er­al pub­lic health pro­grams and authorities,
• the U.S. Parole Com­mis­sion, and
• the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty’s Coun­ter­ing Weapons of Mass Destruc­tion Office.

“The pas­sage of today’s con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion puts House Repub­li­cans in the best posi­tion to fight for con­ser­v­a­tive pol­i­cy vic­to­ries,” argued Speak­er Mike John­son in a state­ment. “The inno­v­a­tive two-step approach takes Washington’s pre­ferred Christ­mas omnibus mon­stros­i­ty off the table, shifts the gov­ern­ment fund­ing par­a­digm mov­ing for­ward, and enhances our abil­i­ty to rein in the Biden administration’s failed poli­cies and gov­ern­ment spend­ing. We also are bet­ter posi­tioned in the upcom­ing sup­ple­men­tal debate to demand Bor­der Secu­ri­ty, ensure over­sight of Ukraine aid, and sup­port our cher­ished ally, Israel.”

As John­son’s state­ment alludes to, the con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion does­n’t include aid for Ukraine or Israel, which are pri­or­i­ties for the Biden-Har­ris administration.

But it does stave off a gov­ern­ment shut­down for a while.

“From the very begin­ning of the Con­gress, House Democ­rats have made clear that we will always put peo­ple over pol­i­tics and try to find com­mon ground with our Repub­li­can col­leagues wher­ev­er pos­si­ble, while push­ing back against Repub­li­can extrem­ism when­ev­er nec­es­sary,” said House Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader Hakeem Jef­fries, Demo­c­ra­t­ic Whip Kather­ine Clark, Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cau­cus Chair Pete Aguilar and Vice Chair Ted Lieu in a joint state­ment.

“That is the frame­work through which we will eval­u­ate all issues before us this Con­gress. We have con­sis­tent­ly made clear that a gov­ern­ment shut­down would hurt the econ­o­my, our nation­al secu­ri­ty and every­day Amer­i­cans dur­ing a very frag­ile time and must be avoid­ed,” the quar­tet added.

“To that end, House Democ­rats have repeat­ed­ly artic­u­lat­ed that any con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion must be set at the fis­cal year 2023 spend­ing lev­el, be devoid of harm­ful cuts and free of extreme right-wing pol­i­cy rid­ers. The con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion before the House today meets that cri­te­ria and we will sup­port it.”

“Mov­ing for­ward, it is impor­tant that Con­gress comes togeth­er to advance the sup­ple­men­tal nation­al secu­ri­ty and domes­tic pol­i­cy fund­ing request­ed by Pres­i­dent Joe Biden. In addi­tion, it is time for House Repub­li­cans to final­ly work with the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cau­cus and the Sen­ate on all twelve appro­pri­a­tions bills in a man­ner con­sis­tent with the Bipar­ti­san Fis­cal Respon­si­bil­i­ty Act.”

“We must com­plete the work of the Amer­i­can peo­ple,” they concluded.

The Sen­ate is expect­ed to con­cur and send the leg­is­la­tion to Pres­i­dent Biden.

If you’re won­der­ing whether the extreme right is unhap­py with their new Speak­er over this, the answer is yes. But hav­ing just oust­ed McCarthy, which caused weeks of paral­y­sis, and hav­ing now had no suc­cess advanc­ing their shut­down agen­da as a result of that maneu­ver, they’re not plot­ting John­son’s downfall.

At least not yet.

“Many House con­ser­v­a­tives are fum­ing that John­son — the most ide­o­log­i­cal­ly con­ser­v­a­tive speak­er in decades — refused to take a hard line in his first attempt nego­ti­at­ing with Democ­rats and instead leaned on them for help,” Politi­co report­ed. “In the end, more Democ­rats vot­ed for the mea­sure than Repub­li­cans, in near­ly iden­ti­cal num­bers to the Sep­tem­ber stop­gap mea­sure that trig­gered McCarthy’s fir­ing. Some tore into his strat­e­gy in a closed-door meet­ing Tues­day, argu­ing that his plan, which would allow fund­ing lev­els set under Nan­cy Pelosi to per­sist for months, is tan­ta­mount to surrender.”

Only an unhinged extrem­ist would argue that sim­ply keep­ing the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment open for a few more weeks at pre­vi­ous­ly adopt­ed fund­ing lev­els is “tan­ta­mount to sur­ren­der.” But it’s 2023 and this is sad­ly the envi­ron­ment Con­gress is attempt­ing to func­tion in. It’s dis­ap­point­ing and pathetic.