House passes GOP funding bill to avert government shutdown

President Joe Biden is prepared to sign the House-approved government funding bill if passed by the Senate, a White House official said Tuesday.

Beyond the pressing government funding fight, the official also called on House Republicans to abandon “extreme, partisan appropriations bills” and work with Democrats on fully-year appropriations bills. The official went on to call on Congress to pass funding for Israel, Ukraine and border security as well.

The House passed Speaker Mike Johnson's funding bill to avert a government shutdown.

It passed on a bipartisan basis by a vote of 336 to 95 – with 209 of the votes coming from Democrats.

The bill was opposed by 93 Republicans and two Democrats. 

Now, the Senate will need to approve the measure before Friday.

The two-step plan extends funding until January 19 for priorities including military construction, Veterans Affairs, transportation, housing and the Energy Department. The rest of the government — anything not covered by the first step — would be funded until February 2.

The proposal does not include additional aid for Israel or Ukraine.

The House of Representatives is voting on Speaker Mike Johnson's funding bill to avert a government shutdown ahead of Friday's critical deadline.

Before the vote, House Republicans appeared to be largely in agreement that the measure will pass, despite strong opposition from some conservatives.

And the House Democratic leadership signaled support for Johnson's bill in a statement ahead of the vote.

The House Democratic leadership signaled support for Speaker Mike Johnson's stop-gap bill in a statement released ahead of Tuesday's votes.

The House is expected to vote this afternoon to pass a stopgap bill to keep the government open, putting Congress on a path to avert a shutdown and setting the stage for a broader funding fight in the new year.

If the House passes the bill, the Senate will next need to approve the measure. Government funding is currently set to expire at the end of the week on Friday, November 17.

In the first major test of his leadership, newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson is pursuing an unusual two-step plan that would set up two new shutdown deadlines in January and February.

If you are just reading in, catch up on the latest:

What the bill would do: The bill would extend funding until January 19 for priorities including military construction, veterans’ affairs, transportation, housing and the Energy Department. The rest of the government — anything not covered by the first step — would be funded until February 2. The proposal does not include additional aid for Israel or Ukraine.

The plan would give lawmakers more time to attempt to negotiate and pass full-year spending bills, though major partisan divisions would make that effort fraught and complicated. Johnson has argued that his plan would prevent Congress from passing a massive spending bill in December — a scenario that has played out many times before when lawmakers have faced a deadline right before the winter holidays.

Freedom Caucus opposes Johnson's plan: The short-term funding plan has already resulted in backlash from some conservatives, a dynamic that will force House Republican leaders to turn to Democrats for votes to pass it as the GOP holds only a narrow majority in the chamber.

The conservative House Freedom Caucus, a group of roughly 30 hardliners, has taken an official position against Johnson’s two-part government funding plan. This comes after Johnson met with the group last night, in hopes of assuaging their concerns over the bill, according to a source familiar.

A number of conservatives oppose the stopgap bill because it would not implement the deep spending cuts they have demanded. Instead, it would extend funding at current levels. As a result, it will need significant Democratic support to pass the House.

Republican leadership is bringing the bill to the House floor under a procedure known as suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority vote to pass.

Read more about the bill.

CNN’s Kristin Wilson, Annie Grayer and Lauren Fox contributed to this report.

Republican Whip John Thune, a senator from South Dakota, said he’s optimistic the House’s spending bill – if passed today – will also advance easily in the Senate “without a lot of fanfare." But he warned the Senate will still have a lot of work to do when it comes back in December. 

Assuming the Senate passes its spending bill until January and February, the Senate still has to move ahead with trying to conference the National Defense Authorization Act – a defense policy bill – with the House.

That bill has more than 60 years of history passing with bipartisan support, but the House version is full of social policy riders that Democrats in the Senate will not accept.

The Senate also has to deal with the FAA bill when it returns and will continue trying to find a way forward to provide aid to Ukraine and Israel. Republicans have insisted that any money for Ukraine will need to be paired with a robust border security package, adding a lot of uncertainty as to whether it can pass. 

Those talks over the border, Thune said, were not going well. 

GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told CNN she’s concerned about Speaker Mike Johnson’s two-step stopgap bill but signaled she would ultimately support it in order to avoid a shutdown.  

When asked if she’d support the measure if it does pass the House, Murkowski said: “I think first steps is we have to see what the House does. Based on what I've heard this morning, it sounds like they probably have the votes to send it over. Again, it's going to be important to avoid a government shutdown and I will support that. I am a little bit worried about pushing, pushing things off until both January and February.”

The bill Johnson is putting on the floor this afternoon will extend parts of the government until January 19 and the rest of the government that’s not covered by the first step until February 2.

“I think it is almost somewhat ironic that the date of the second extension takes us to February 2, which as most people will remember is Groundhog's Day. And it kind of feels a little bit like Groundhog's Day around here as we, as we move to move these things off," Murkowski said. 

She also expressed concern that pushing the funding deadline to next year will impact Congress’ ability to pass appropriations bills for 2025. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters that the combined national security package — which includes aid for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and the border — will be taken up by the chamber after Thanksgiving, as senators from both parties negotiate the border policy piece.

Schumer said that he wants "very strongly, all four requests of the president be approved — Ukraine, Israel, humanitarian, and Indo-Pacific. And we’re going to work very hard to get that down," adding that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his request to have border security added to the package is one of the holdups.

Asked about House GOP efforts to separate the package into smaller, standalone bills, Schumer replied, “We need bipartisan support for all four, and I’m going to work strenuously, very hard to get all four done.”

On the plan to avert a government shutdown: The majority leader reiterated his support for House Speaker Mike Johnson’s short-term spending bill, despite his misgivings over dividing funding into two tranches — he called the two-step idea “goofy.”

“When it comes to government funding, as I have long said, it has to be bipartisan. And right now, that’s the path we seem to be on. I’m heartened — very cautiously so — that Speaker Johnson is moving forward with a CR (continuing resolution) that precisely omits the sort of hard right cuts that would have been nonstarters for Democrats,” Schumer said.

He went on to say that he doesn't agree with everything Johnson is proposing, and added, “I can’t imagine too many senators would have taken the speaker’s approach in drafting this bill, on either the Democratic or Republican sides here in the Senate."

Pressed by CNN on the White House’s dismissal of the proposal on Saturday, Schumer was confident that President Joe Biden will accept the bill if it is passed by Congress. “I think that we all want to avoid a shutdown. I’ve talked to the White House, and both of us agree that if this can avoid a shutdown, it’ll be a good thing," he said.

Schumer added that the Senate will take up the spending bill as soon as possible. “When it comes here, if the House should pass it and I hope they do, Leader McConnell and I will figure out the best way to get this done quickly. Neither McConnell nor I want a shutdown,” he said, noting that they discussed this yesterday.

Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson announced a two-step plan for funding the government on a GOP conference call with members Saturday afternoon. “I wasn’t the architect of the mess we are in,” he argued, according to a source on the call.

The House is expected to vote on the plan on the floor this afternoon. Two-thirds of the House will have to support the bill for it to pass.

While Johnson embraced the right-wing members of his conference by pitching the two-step approach, he didn’t fully cave to their wishes. The package does not include the deep spending cuts his right flank pushed for but instead extends funding at its current levels.

Here's how the plan would work:

Neither bill includes additional aid for Israel or Ukraine.

The two-step approach was widely pushed by Republican hardliners but dismissed by many senators as a complicated solution that would be hard to execute. Still, given that funding for the agencies would stay at current levels, it could be harder for Democrats to reject.

A Senate Democratic leadership aide signaled their openness to Johnson’s funding plan, telling CNN, “It’s a good thing the speaker didn’t include unnecessary cuts and kept defense funding with the second group of programs.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, however, cast Johnson’s plan as “a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns – full stop.”

“House Republicans need to stop wasting time on their own political divisions, do their jobs, and work in a bipartisan way to prevent a shutdown,” Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

Ahead of the conference call Saturday, Republicans had been weighing multiple options, including a more straightforward stopgap bill with some added sweeteners along with the more complicated two-step approach Johnson is pitching. The conference has been divided over which option to pursue, with appropriators in favor of a “clean” stopgap bill and members of the Freedom Caucus pushing the laddered approach.

Keep reading about the plan here.