Congress passes stopgap bill to avert government shutdown

The House and Senate both passed a stopgap bill on Thursday to avert a partial government shutdown at the end of the week.

To provide additional time for full-year funding bills to be finalized and passed, the stopgap measure will extend funding on a short-term basis and set up two deadlines on March 8 and March 22. The bill will now go to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.

Congress had been confronting a pair of shutdown deadlines on March 1 and March 8. At the end of the day Friday, funding would have expired for a number of key government agencies if lawmakers did not pass the stopgap before that time.

The House vote was 320 to 99 with 113 Republicans voting in favor and 97 Republicans voting against. Two Democrats voted against the measure. The Senate vote was 77 to 13.

On Wednesday, congressional leaders announced an agreement on six appropriations bills and said the package of full-year bills will be enacted before March 8, while the remaining appropriations bills to fund the rest of the government will be finalized and passed before March 22.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has been under intense pressure from his right flank to fight for conservative wins in the government funding battle, and hardliners were quick to push back on the prospect of another short-term funding bill.

“The appropriations process is ugly,” Johnson told reporters on Thursday. “Democracy is ugly. This is the way it works every year – always has – except that we’ve instituted some new innovations. We broke the omnibus fever, right? That’s how Washington has been run for years. We’re trying to turn the aircraft carrier back to real budgeting and spending reform. This was an important thing to break it up into smaller pieces.”