Senate passes stopgap funding bill to avert government shutdown after missing midnight deadline

A partial government shutdown went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Saturday morning after Congress failed to pass an emergency bill in time.

However, this does not mean that the process is over. The Senate just passed the bill 85-11. Earlier in the day, the House of Representatives gave its consent.

All that now needs to happen before the shutdown is lifted is for President Joe Biden to sign the funding package, which will also deliver disaster relief to the southeastern U.S., which has been rocked by hurricanes, and provide economic aid to farmers in the whole country.

The partial shutdown comes just days before Christmas and New Year’s, and had no agreement been reached, hundreds of thousands of federal workers would have been laid off indefinitely.

During a partial shutdown, federal agencies and nonessential services typically cease immediately. National security functions such as border patrols, law enforcement and emergency response teams remain active.

Biden will sign the bill soon and has already said he supports it.

Before the Senate passed the bill, the White House released a statement pledging that no agencies would be closed “because there is a high degree of confidence that Congress will pass the relevant appropriations in the near term.”

The statement also confirmed that Biden would sign the crucial legislation when it is sent to his desk.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson succeeded in passing the emergency bill through his chambers 366 to 34. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer presided over a Senate that failed to pass the bill before noon on Saturday.

As the deadline quickly approached Friday evening, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, announced that the Senate had reached agreement on the spending bill, often called a continuing resolution (CR).

“I have very good news for my colleagues and the country,” he said in the Senate. “Democrats and Republicans just reached an agreement that will allow us to pass the CR tonight before the midnight deadline.”

The House of Representatives adopted the expenditure bill on Friday evening. The CR extends government funding through March and provides more than $100 billion in emergency assistance to hurricane victims, farmers and more. It does not include a suspension of the debt limit, as President-elect Donald Trump had demanded.

The 118-page bill passed with bipartisan support in the House of Representatives, 366 to 34, after Republican Chairman Mike Johnson negotiated the details in multiple conversations with his Democratic colleague Hakeem Jeffries on Friday.

The approval of the GOP spending deal late Friday came at the eleventh hour after Trump and billionaire Elon Musk demanded Johnson capitulate to their policy priorities during his negotiations.

Johnson originally proposed a 1,547-page CR, but it was quickly mocked by many in the Republican Party and especially by Musk, who used the pulpit of his speaker returned to the drawing boards.

After consulting with Trump’s team, Johnson then produced a 116-page bill backed by the newly elected president and Musk. But that went down in flames on Thursday by a vote of 174 to 235, after almost every Democrat and 38 Republicans in the House of Representatives voted against it.

President-elect Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk each had their own issues with the original 1,547-page CR. Their statements against it ultimately led to its torpedoing

The new, slimmed-down Republican bill included a provision demanded by Trump to extend the debt ceiling until 2027.

Democrats opposed it because it eliminates one of the few leverage tools they would have under Trump, and some conservative Republicans are dead set against raising the debt limit altogether.

On Friday, Johnson and many Republicans in the House of Representatives were locked in private meetings all day to discuss the best path forward. Many were unsure how the final vote for the bill passed tonight would go.

But the speaker’s last-ditch effort, just hours before federal funding expired, ultimately fell short on time. Still, the effects of the partial shutdown will not be felt as no agencies will be closed, the White House statement said.

“We will not have a government shutdown,” Johnson said earlier in the day.

Democrats criticized Republicans on Friday for scrapping the original bipartisan deal, which was reached after weeks of negotiations.

But Jeffries reportedly told his Democratic members that they will “fight another day” and ordered his party to support Johnson’s plan.