Senate votes to advance stopgap spending bill as government shutdown deadline looms

The US Senate has voted to advance a stopgap spending bill, as Congress continues to hurtle towards Friday’s deadline to avert a looming government shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Mike Johnson have reached a tentative deal to extend government funding into March – but it still needs to pass formal votes in both chambers.

On Tuesday night, Congress took a key first step to passing the continuing resolution before Friday, with the Senate voting 68-13 to advance it.

Mr Schumer said on Tuesday that he expects the continuing resolution to be wrapped up “no later than Thursday”.

“If both sides continue to work in good faith, I’m hopeful that we can wrap up work on the CR no later than Thursday,” he said.

“The key to finishing our work this week will be bipartisan cooperation in both chambers, you can’t pass these bills without support from Republicans and Democrats in both the House and the Senate.”

The stopgap bill will extend government funding through to 1 March and 8 March, to allow for more time to pass longer-term funding.

The agreement sets a topline spending number of $1.59 trillion for the fiscal year and $69bn in “budget adjustments”, and will mark the third CR since 2023 funding expired in September.

Mike Johnson on Capitol Hill on 10 January 2024

However, if the continuing resolution fails to pass by the deadline of Friday 19 January, government funding will run out for some federal government agencies – and the government will partially shut down.

While Tuesday’s vote marks a key step in the right direction, there are still challenges to getting it over the line in both chambers.

In the House in particular, Mr Johnson is facing pushback from the far-right faction of the