House Approves Mike Johnson’s Stopgap Funding Bill

Congress is poised to avert Friday’s government shutdown deadline.

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Hello from Capitol Hill, where members are feeling a bit testy and everyone is itching to head home for Thanksgiving. First, they’ll have to fund the government.

The Congressional Record

  • The House voted 336-95 on Tuesday to pass a stopgap funding bill introduced by House Speaker Mike Johnson, with 209 Democrats joining 127 Republicans to get it over the finish line despite opposition from conservatives in the chamber. The Senate appears ready to take up the spending bill and avert a government shutdown before Friday’s deadline, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer signaling openness to it on Monday.
  • Rep. Gabe Amo, the first black member of Congress from Rhode Island, was sworn into the House on Monday. A Democrat and former Obama administration official, Amo replaces retired Rep. David Cicilline, who left the chamber over the summer to lead the philanthropic Rhode Island Foundation. 
  • Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a Virginia Democrat, announced Monday she will not seek reelection to the House as she launches a bid to succeed Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin—who is term-limited—in 2025.
  • Rep. Michael Burgess, a Texas Republican who has served in the House for two decades, announced Monday he will not seek reelection.
  • Rep. Pat Fallon, a second-term Republican from Texas, also won’t seek reelection to the House. He’s instead running for a Texas state Senate seat he held before joining Congress. “At the end of the day, the decision came down to, If we lose Texas, we lose the nation,” Fallon explained. “It’s just terribly important to ensure that Texas has written a great success story and I want to keep moving that forward.”
  • The Supreme Court announced Monday it will adopt its first official code of conduct. Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, praised the move as a step in the right direction, but argued its lack of an enforcement mechanism “falls short” of his expectations.

Congress May Avoid a Shutdown

House Speaker Mike Johnson conducts a news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center where he addressed the continuing resolution to fund the government and the war in Israel, on Tuesday, November 14, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images
House Speaker Mike Johnson conducts a news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center where he addressed the continuing resolution to fund the government and the war in Israel, on Tuesday, November 14, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images

House Speaker Mike Johnson’s stopgap government funding bill is poised to become law in time to avert a Friday shutdown deadline, clearing the House Tuesday night with a vote of 336-95.

Johnson’s measure won 209 Democrats and 127 Republicans. But 93 Republican lawmakers, upset the bill keeps spending at current levels rather than cutting it, voted against the legislation. Two Democrats opposed it. Johnson passed his first real test as speaker by pushing the bill through the chamber.

The stopgap bill, which extends funding for some programs until January and others until February to avoid a Christmastime crunch, otherwise looks a lot like the approach former speaker Kevin McCarthy took—relying on Democrats to get short-term spending over the finish line—before eight far-right Republicans joined Democrats in ousting him from the speakership in early October. But as we reported last week, conservatives are giving Johnson some more leeway because he’s new to the gig. That dynamic is holding true this week, even as some members railed against the stopgap bill for not making cuts to spending.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    “ Kildee noted Democrats had a similarly slim majority in the last Congress, but they were able to pass trillions of dollars of their priorities along party lines. On the Democratic side, Kildee summarized, members argue about how to govern. “On the Republican side,” he said, “they argue about whether they should do it at all.””

    Well, if you define spending more money as governing, then yes. Imagine if I ran a company and all we ever did was spend more money than we took in. We’d go deeper into debt. But hey we’d be the most popular corporation ever because we’d give our crap away at a loss. What would happen? Imagine if instead of working a job, I decided my “job” was to just spend money. I’d go shopping all day and go deeper into debt. What would happen?

    My idea of governing would be spending less money. Making hard decisions and taking responsibility, rather than flushing money down the toilet to get re-elected.

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  2. Rdtomasello51

    Absolutely agree ,Haley, that thr Chinese use diplomacy to delay or obstruct U.S. pressure. I have severe doubts that China would implement any measure agreed to with the U.S govt. unless it does not sacrifice their long term goals of a certain amount of hegemony over the Indo-Pacifuc region to counter US interests in that area. That, to.me is China's biggest concern and will do what they feel is necessary to maintain that attitude. Thanks for another excellent article

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  3. R. James

    The Chinese government gives no sign of altering its policies, either domestically or internationally. This meeting is nothing more than a grip and grin. Worse, it risks papering over a contentious relationship and inspiring a false sense of security when the reality is that America should be hardening its economy and national security against worse case scenarios caused by CCP malicious conduct. Xi is playing nice right now until he gets his domestic situation stabilized, but he will not make any concessions. When China weathers this real estate storm and Xi finishes his purges, China will return to the war path, probably by next summer.

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  4. Avatar photo
    OJFL

    And there will be no motion to vacate this time around. I wonder why...

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  5. Avatar photo
    Treadmill

    Military here. What are my odds on getting paid in December, I wonder?

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    1. R. James

      Pretty good.

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  6. Diss Bard

    I thought this statement was treated remarkably uncritically:

    "Kildee noted Democrats had a similarly slim majority in the last Congress, but they were able to pass trillions of dollars of their priorities along party lines. On the Democratic side, Kildee summarized, members argue about how to govern."

    From a political perspective, the statement is nonsense: the Democrats controlled both houses last Congress; Republicans now (barely) control one. It takes a lot of chutzpah to analogize the two.

    Second, from a public choice perspective, equating "agreeing to pass trillions of dollars of priorities" with "governing" is again nonsense. The Republicans' basic point is we must choose between funding Priority A or Priority B. Democrats solve that problem by funding A _and_ B - that is, by avoiding the choice. That is not "governing."

    Third, neither party has yet come to grips with the fact that _authorizing spending_ is not _funding_. True governance would recognize that proposed deficit spending is unsustainable, particularly given current debt levels. Republicans want to deficit spend by reducing taxes below the level necessary to pay for current programs; Democrats do it by increasing spending above current tax levels. Needless to say, "We're better deficit spenders than the other side" is not much of an argument.

    The article might have held Kildee's statement up to this light.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Normb1442

    The shutdown must be avoided for the rest of 2024 at the Jan-Feb votes, because after that it will be full-blown primary season, and a lot of people are going to do things they wouldn't do when they knew the voters weren't watching

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  8. Avatar photo
    Earl King

    well, sea;; things. they can govern. for the moment. that said I don’t think anyone will leave 2023 believing the GOP can govern or that they know what they are doing.
    time will tell.....

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  9. Avatar photo
    Mattjabour

    McCarthy's blood must be boiling right now. Life is good.

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  10. Avatar photo
    JohnM.

    Good reporting here, especially about the meeting with Xi. Thank you, Haley.

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