House punts government shutdown deadline to next week after Johnson forced to seek Dem support again

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Speaker Mike Johnson bucked the House GOP’s right flank to pass a short-term federal funding bill on Thursday, setting up Congress to avoid a partial government shutdown.

The bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), extends fiscal 2023’s government funding levels to two deadlines: March 8 and March 22. It passed the House, 320-99.

Majorities in both parties voted for the bill, although more Democrats than Republicans supported it – 113 GOP lawmakers voted for the CR while 97 voted against, and 207 Democrats voted for it versus just two who were opposed. In a modest win for Johnson, however, this CR got more GOP votes than the extension he put on the House floor in January, which got 107 Republicans' support.

Congress is currently operating under a CR passed in January that extended funding for some of its 12 appropriations bills to March 1 and others to March 8.

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House GOP leaders were forced to seek Democrat votes, which were likely anyway, to pass the bill. They fast-tracked it under suspension of the rules, meaning it forgoes the normal process of going through the House Rules Committee and a House-wide procedural vote in exchange for raising the threshold for passage to two-thirds instead of a simple