Congress Passes Bill to Avert Government Shutdown

Congress approved a temporary spending bill to prevent a partial government shutdown this weekend, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) forced once again to turn to a coalition made up mostly of Democrats to clear it in the House, followed by passage in the Senate.

The Thursday afternoon House vote was 320 to 99, with slightly more than half of Republicans joining with almost all Democrats to support the measure. The Democratic-led Senate passed the bill 77-13 Thursday evening. The measure, which extends funding for part of the government until March 8 and the rest until March 22, now heads to President Biden for his signature.

Some House Republicans had emerged from a closed-door meeting ahead of the vote saying they were frustrated that Johnson was asking them to support another deadline extension without more spending cuts or other conservative victories. Thursday’s stopgap measure was the third passed with Democrats during Johnson’s speakership, and will buy negotiators more time to then pass full-year spending bills next month, under a framework agreed with Democrats.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R., Ariz.), who voted against the deadline extensions, said Johnson hasn’t worked hard enough to cut spending and that he squandered House Republicans’ sole source of leverage by being unwilling to shut down the government.

“You basically emasculate your leverage when you say, ‘We’ll never do a government shutdown,’ ” he said.

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