WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional leaders said Sunday they had agreed to a short-term spending bill that would provide federal agencies with about three months of funding, averting a potential partial government shutdown with the new budget year that begins Oct. 1 and delaying a final decision until after the November election.
Lawmakers have struggled to reach that stage as the current budget year draws to a close at the end of this month. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, at the urging of the House’s most conservative members, has tied the one-time funding to a bill that would require states to require proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
But Johnson was unable to get the support of all Republicans in Congress, despite the push for the bill from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who said Republicans should not support a stopgap measure that doesn’t have a voting requirement. The bill ultimately failed, with 14 Republicans voting against it.
WATCH: With election looming, Congress scrambles to avoid government shutdown
Bipartisan negotiations began in earnest soon after, with leaders agreeing to extend the budget through mid-December, allowing the current Congress to write a spending bill for a year after the Nov. 5 election, rather than pushing that responsibility onto the next Congress and the next president.
In a letter to Republican lawmakers, Johnson said the funding measure would be “very limited and bare bones” and would include “only those extensions that are absolutely necessary.”
“While this is not the solution any of us would like, it is the most prudent course under the current circumstances,” Johnson wrote. “History teaches us, and current polls prove, that shutting down the government with less than 40 days until a crucial election would be political malfeasance.”
Rep. Tom Cole, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said Friday that talks were progressing well.
“We don’t have anything going on right now that we can’t handle,” said Cole, an Oklahoma Republican. “Most people don’t want a government shutdown, and they don’t want it to affect the election, so no one is saying, ‘If we don’t accept this, we’re going to lose the election.’ It’s not going to work that way.”
Johnson’s previous efforts had no chance in the Democratic-controlled Senate and were opposed by the White House, but it gave him an opportunity to show President Trump and his party’s conservatives that he fought for their demands.
The end result — government funding effectively on autopilot — was what many expected: With just weeks to go until the election, most lawmakers in both parties were not open to the brinkmanship that often leads to a government shutdown.
A bipartisan majority is expected to finalize short-term measures. The emergency spending bill generally funds government agencies at current budget levels but also includes extra money for strengthening the Secret Service, replenishing the disaster relief fund and supporting the presidential transition.
