Congress is rushing to pass a $1.2 trillion bill before the shutdown deadline
Congressional leaders scrambled Friday to crush a conservative uprising and pass a $1.2 trillion bipartisan bill needed to fund the government through the fall. They are rushing to push through the measure before the midnight deadline to avoid a partial shutdown.
Republican leaders in the House of Representatives scheduled a mid-morning vote on the legislation, which would fund the Department of Homeland Security, the Pentagon, the State Department and health agencies. But they were still working to stem defections in their ranks among Republicans, who were angered by a deal that critics say did not make deep enough spending cuts and did not include enough conservative policy mandates, moving through Congress with unusual speed was piloted.
Speaker Mike Johnson and his deputies are relying on the same coalition of lawmakers that has passed every spending bill so far in the past year — almost all Democrats and a slim majority of Republicans — to expedite the bill through the House of Representatives under a special procedure called requires a two-thirds supermajority, or 290 votes. But with hours to go before the vote, it was not clear whether Mr Johnson could muster even half of his members to support the measure, potentially putting that threshold out of reach.
If the legislation, which rolls together six spending bills into one package, were to fail in the House of Representatives on Friday, lawmakers would be sent back to the drawing board just hours before government spending would virtually expire at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. guaranteeing at least partial closure.
Should this pass in the House of Representatives, it remains to be seen whether Senate conservatives will agree to quickly put the measure to a vote in that chamber, where any senator can delay consideration of legislation.
“Democracy is messy,” Mr. Johnson said in an interview on CNBC on Thursday. “It’s particularly messy at the moment, and at a time like this, but we have to get the job done and there are some very substantial wins in here.”
Democrats and Republicans have both highlighted victories in the hard-negotiated legislation. Republicans cited as victories the funding for 2,000 new Border Patrol agents, additional detention beds managed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and a provision cutting off aid to the main U.N. agency providing aid to the Palestinians. Democrats provided increases in funding for federal child care and education programs, cancer and Alzheimer’s research.
But the legislation has created a furor among ultraconservatives both inside and outside Capitol Hill, who have called on their supporters to lobby lawmakers to vote against it.
“America is being robbed with open borders and $2 trillion deficits – and there are blue AND red fingerprints on the knife,” Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, an influential conservative who led opposition to the legislation, wrote on social media Thursday evening.