House approves short-term funding bill to avert shutdown before election

The House passed a short-term funding bill Tuesday to keep the federal government open into early December, voting 370-48, lawmakers said.

The Senate had already overwhelmingly approved the measure, and it now moves to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature, according to lawmakers. The measure funds federal agencies generally at current levels through Dec. 11.

Lawmakers said the stopgap was aimed at avoiding a chaotic funding lapse as members campaign for reelection and to prevent running up against the fiscal year deadline at the end of September. “It gives the nation and our constituents certainty, certainty that the government will remain open, certainty that our service members will be paid,” Rep. Tom Cole, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters before the vote, “We’re going to avoid the threat of another Democratic shutdown,” lawmakers said. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, urged her colleagues to back the bill and said it was improved from an earlier House version.

DeLauro said the changes made in the Senate version include provisions to bar the Department of Homeland Security from transferring funds to the Border Patrol and to delay a proposed rule that would give political appointees greater authority to block federal grants. “Whether a community receives disaster relief should not depend on who they voted for in the last election,” she said. Lawmakers warned that fuller negotiations on a yearlong spending package will be difficult, with Republicans seeking large increases for the military and cuts to many domestic programs while Democrats press for parity in funding, they said.

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